Education and technology used to improve the quality of life for people with diabetes mellitus type II

Figures & data

Table 1 Significant themes and subthemes

Themes	Illustrative quotes
Role of client
Accountability	I find that it’s very helpful for patients when I help them set goals … say ‘ok you’re going to work on this for one week or two weeks and you’re going to come back’, so giving them those reporting tools and holding them accountable (participant #2).
Motivation for change	I think it’s very individual and it just depends on what stage of change they are in, whether they are ready to make changes or not, it depends on their level of motivation (participant #3).
Active participation	Teaching people how to take care of themselves and how to empower themselves to take care of their diabetes (participant #2).
Supports to the current diabetes education process
Peer support	The process is to make it not a lecture but to make it a discussion, engage other people to share their experiences and to learn from each other and not just you know the teacher so to speak … I think that has really helped engage patients and it’s helped just provide better quality education (participant #3).
Structure curriculum	When it comes to diabetes education, you can be credentialed to provide and you can look for credentialing through the American Diabetes Association or the American Association for Diabetes Education (participant #1).
Community resources	So when you think about health care related to diabetes, we have to push it to a level where there are more people that are able to help us get the message out that diabetes controls the map … People are doing diabetes education in grocery stores. They go to the pharmacy, so people are doing diabetes education in pharmacies. They go to church, so they are having diabetes education done in, church … or whatever organization or religious organization you may be a part of (participant #1).
Barriers to the current diabetes education process
Client perceptions	I think people feel that if they are not doing well they don’t want to get reprimanded (participant #3).
Insurance	Even though individualized care is ideal, it is difficult to provide due to insurance limitations and the limited number of diabetes educators (participant #1).
Ineffective transdisciplinary approach	We just haven’t set up or incorporated a way to make that education more cohesive and planned out so that we can include all these other disciplines (participant #2).
Ineffective communication between practitioner and client	Her provider and her did not connect on the fact that she has a very serious disease that is going to kill her if she keeps her AIC up that high (participant #3).
Role of diabetes educator
Coach	The things that work are, if you ask somebody to check blood sugar, you need to follow up with them and show them, and explain to them exactly how, like, ok you had a high blood sugar, what have you eaten, had you exercised, what are some of the factors that increase blood sugar or decrease it and actually look at their information, and help them to understand it so that they’re not just collecting information. So the things that work are things that people can really understand and apply to their own life (participant #2).
Collaboration Outreach and network	… figuring out who the kind of like movers and shakers are in the community and getting them to kind of be on your side and buy into “hey we’re doing a cooking class, can you let all of your employees know, or all of your patients know,” or whatever (participant #2).
Program development	The goal of any diabetes educator who is doing a good job is to use a curriculum that has been tested and scientifically proven (participant #1).
Ongoing support	It’s really challenging to get people to come back and we need to focus on that and figure out better ways to provide that support, technology being one (participant #3).
Technology	Cause, I know personally, me, I do schedule my exercise, and I put it into my [electronic] calendar. So every week, when I have my little to-do list, my exercise is on my to-do list (participant #3).

Figure 1 Interactive components of diabetes education.