Building Competency in Diabetes Education THE ESSENTIALS

SELF-MANAGEMENT EDUCATION & SUPPORT: PROGRAM DEVELOPMENT| 11-61

framework for evaluating health behaviours, patient-centered care, quality of life, structure and traditional physiological parameters of effectiveness. The full text of the Standards Recognition Program can be found on the Professional Section of the Diabetes Canada website (www.diabetes.ca).

AADE The American Association of Diabetes Educators (AADE) has made outcomes of SME research its national priority (84). They have implemented a National Diabetes Education Outcomes

System, which is designed to assess seven behaviours - AADE7 - physical activity, food choices, medication administration, monitoring of BG, problem-solving for BG, risk-reduction activities and psychosocial adaptation/healthy coping. The system tracks the interventions with a web-based information system, and measures their effectiveness and evaluates the result in relation to best practices and outcomes (85). Looking at the deficits noted by Glasgow, the AADE not only includes these indices, but emphasizes them in their national standards for Diabetes Self-management Education and Support (82,84,86,57,60). For

example, Standard 9 requires that “the providers of DSME and DSMS monitor whether participants are achieving their personal diabetes self-management goals and his or her progress toward these goals” (86). Their quality improvement standard necessitates the measurement of both process and outcome standards to reflect the true nature of comprehensive evaluation (86).

Successful Interventions:

• Fulfill a substantiated need. • Are developed in a logical, step-wise process. • Are concerned with implementation, as well as outcomes. • Are active, reactive and adaptive. • Are evaluated.

Regardless of which process you choose to evaluate your program, whether on an individual or population level, you will need evidence that your objectives were met. Each objective written for the intervention should be measurable, making the evaluation a less