Standard model of care at Sydney Children’s Hospital Network (SCHN) Randwick meets ISPAD guidelines for children/adolescents with Type 1Diabetes (T1D) by reviewing patients within a multidisciplinary team environment in individual clinic appointments every three months. However, families frequently request additional educational opportunities to further develop diabetes management concepts and skills. By offering group education opportunities in the last two years, the Diabetes Service has delivered effective diabetes education to larger audiences, including the added benefit of social interaction with other children/adolescents/families with T1D.
The first was “Cooking and Carbohydrate Counting Workshop” for adolescents with T1D on insulin pump therapy. The workshop aimed to improve/consolidate carbohydrate counting skills for this population. The Diabetes team interacted with the adolescents outside the typical clinical environment, plus the adolescents interacted with each other. The event was hosted by ‘Our Big Kitchen’, a community organisation specialising in corporate cooking events.
The second was “Type 1 Diabetes Education Day” held on-site at SCHN Randwick. It drew on the expertise of the full diabetes multidisciplinary team. The aim was to promote sustainable empowerment of diabetes management skills to children/ adolescents with T1D and their families. There were a variety of presentations, including from two guest speakers with T1D. Carbohydrate counting and insulin adjustment workshops were incorporated.
Both group education Quality Improvement Activities demonstrate that it is possible to deliver diabetes education outside of a clinical setting and to a larger audience. In addition to being more time efficient, group education has other benefits such as social connection that cannot be achieved through individual clinic appointments. Feedback from both group education activities was overwhelmingly positive and indicated a strong demand for more events of this nature in the future.
Event sponsors: Abbott, AMSL Diabetes, Medtronic