An Inside Story on Diabetes Education and Care to Reduce Diabetes Cost in the US - I

The Economic Cost of Diabetes in the United States

Have you ever wished for extra 600-dollars? Well, this is how much annual Diabetic expenses will spread out over every child, men and women in the US. At an estimated $354 billion in 2011, diabetic costs can be considered one of the major health problems that economically affect the entire US population.

Unfortunately, this issue is only becoming worse, as conservative trend analysis indicate that the total United States population diagnosed with Diabetes will grow from the 2011 level of 6.9% to 12% by 2015. As a result of this prediction, the question that inevitably follows is how to manage the fast coming strong tidal wave of medical expenses related with such a dramatic growth in patient population?

When looking out for possible answers to this serious question, an evaluation of relevant studies unveiled that there is a great potential for cost reduction via improvements in patient medical care. This concept is supported by the article, “Amputation Prevention Imitative in India: Positive Impact of Foot Care Education,” which shed light on how intensive foot-care education for people suffering from diabetes substantially reduces disease progression.

In one study mentioned in this article, 82% of patients, who followed diabetes education and care instructions had foot ulceration heal compared to the healing pace of 50% in those that did not follow the instructions. This means that diabetes educational interventions have not only proven to work miraculously when followed, but that the positive effect on the heath of a diabetic patient may further result in lowered health expenses by the avoidance of surgery and associated medical treatments.

Diabetes education makes you well-aware of diabetes, what all it takes to treat it and provides you with the power to control it. The education allows you to better incorporate the care instructions into your life and make all the vital changes to improve your lifestyle. In an effort to know the applicability of these findings to the patients with diabetes in the US, we must attempt to identify and assess as many Diabetes educational opportunities as possible.

Educational Opportunities and Instructions are Available: All you need is To Recognize Them

Recognizing educational opportunities does not at all mean though, that disorderly created materials would be appropriate when attempting to educate diabetic patients. Educational and care programs must avert pitfalls while engaging the diabetic patient in what all has been shown to be beneficial and effective, in terms of insulin control, when evaluated against other techniques of educational intervention. This means that patients do not learn best actively, but in fact, they must be targeted with a passive intervention that elicits participation in particularly tailored education programs and materials in order to highly appropriate self-care.

In the next part of this article under the same title and the introduction, we would be shedding light on some more factors that contributes towards this cause.