Impact of Long-term Dietary Modification Program on Diabetes Prevention, and Enhancement of Quality of Care, Patient Safety, and Reduction of Care Costs

Diabetes is related to increased costs due to the cost of treating the disease. Uncontrolled diabetes damages multiple organs, leading to complications that increase care costs and reduce the quality of care received and overall quality of life. Diabetes-related complications include cardiovascular complications such as cardiac diseases and hypertension (Yamazaki et al., 2018) and stroke (Alam et al., 2021), neuropathy resulting in numbness and pain, nephropathy with a risk of total kidney failure, and retinopathy complications risking total blindness (WHO, 2021). Other conditions that affect the patient’s quality of life include foot and skin conditions, depression, and dementia (Chow et al., 2022). The World Health Organization (WHO, 2021) has identified diabetes as a leading cause of death, with over 1.5 million deaths directly caused by diabetes being reported in 2019.

A cure for diabetes mellitus, especially Type 1 and 2, is yet to be developed. However, research has proved that diabetes progression can be prevented and reversed (Hallberg et al., 2019). Diet changes and weight loss are linked to improved glycemic control in patients with Type 2 diabetes (Yu et al., 2020; Yuan et al., 2020). My dietary modification and change program will integrate holistic approaches in the diet modification and change program. Therefore, I will collaborate with and lead other specialists to develop individualized eating plans for patients that focus on organic foods rich in nutrients and low fat and calorie content. The program will promote reduced consumption of refined and processed foods and sweetened drinks and improved physical activity. The program will eliminate the use of expensive medications for diabetes management, eventually reducing the costs of diabetes care while eliminating the side effects associated with the use of diabetes medications. The elimination of the medications and associated side effects improves patient safety and care quality. Further reversing diabetes reduces the risk of diabetes-related complications with long-term effects on the cost and quality of care and improved patient quality. The progress of the intervention program and its health and economic impacts will be benchmarked against the Impact Toolkit provided by the CDC National Diabetes Prevention Program and the Medicare Diabetes Prevention Program (MDPP) Expanded Model.

I chose to focus on diabetes mellitus as it is a continuing healthcare problem of concern based on the current disease trends. Diabetes is also a risk factor for various complications that lower the quality of life of the patients and their caregivers and reduce their productivity. I expect this project to improve my understanding of evidence-based practices in addressing community health issues and improving the quality of care and health outcomes. It will be relevant to the patients and the community as it will create awareness of diabetes and promote the best healthy eating practices to improve diabetes care, manage the disease, and prevent it to avoid future cases.

Application of Health Information, Patient Care Technologies in Care Coordination, and Utilization of Community in Diabetes Management

I will use technology in my project, including patient management technologies and communication and social platforms to help with care coordination, information sharing, and creating awareness of the Dietary Modification and Change Program. I will specifically make use of Health Information Exchange (HIE) systems and electronic health record (EHR) functions to support the major coordination and collaboration of care efforts. The use of technology will support the coordination of care and community resources for the effective implementation of the dietary modification and change program. Technology has been associated with improved efficiency of care coordination, collaboration, and communication by easing the sharing of health information. For instance, healthcare technologies such as EHRs improve interoperability of care team information with an impact on care coordination for complex patients (Ranade-Kharkar et al., 2018). Technology has also been linked to better peer-to-peer communication and sharing of health information and education, resulting in improved disease literacy among peers (Peterson et al., 2020) and an impact on disease prevention behaviors with proven lowered chances of falling sick (Saran et al., 2018).

Care coordination and collaboration are essential in this project as they create a participative community that works towards the objectives of the program. Care coordination depends on bringing together community resources and aligning the available community resources, such as human resources and capital, to improve health outcomes (Ross & de Saxe Zerden, 2020). I will, therefore, use technology to effectively coordinate healthcare teams and