Diabetes is a disease on the rise. As we live longer, with a poor diet and lack of exercise, more and more of us will become diabetic.
The Phoenix Medical Practice has a unique capability in PEI: we can use our cutting edge electronic medical record to search for diabetics and follow them up closely. This means that our Diabetes Nurse, can easily find out which of her patients have not been attending their follow up appointments. Of course, having our own Diabetes Nurse in the practice means that our diabetic patients get a fantastic service. The Practice Nurse and Medical Team work closely together under one roof. This means great communication and great care.
The main test for how well a diabetic is doing is the HbA1c test. This test measures the average sugar in your blood over the last 3 months. We know from research that the higher your HbA1c, the higher your chances of dying. Patients with a higher HbA1c are almost twice as likely to die over a 5 year period than patients with a good HbA1c.
Another capability we have is the ability to look at how well we are doing now or in the past. Our electronic medical record means that we can search in seconds for the average HbA1c from 18 months ago. It was 8.2. Another search for a year ago shows it had fallen to 7.85. A third search shows that our average HbA1c is 7.7 today.
This means that over the last 18 months we have reduced their chance of dying over the next 5 years by as much as 25%. Not only does this mean that our patients are going to live longer and be healthy longer, but they will be getting admitted to hospital less which means taxpayer's health dollars can be spent better.
We're really proud of the hard work of the whole team - from the receptionists who enter this data into the computers, to the nurses who encourage and educate patients, to the patients who are working hard to keep themselves healthy.
Congratulations and keep up the good work!
