Diabetes management using the innovation of blood glucose meter within the age group 25+ in the East Midlands UK
Project Title
The project is primarily centered on Diabetes management using the innovation of blood glucose meter within the age group 25+ in the East Midlands UK.
Executive Summary
Implementing the innovation of blood sugar meter in measuring blood glucose would be highly effective in the East Midlands UK among people aged 25 and above. The process will entail the conduction of workshops to create awareness and educate people on the relevance of blood glucose measuring to manage diabetes. The benefits include healthier lifestyles, reduced health and financial burdens, and reduction of diabetes prevalence. Upon implementation, the innovation will be periodically monitored to ensure its effectiveness.
The context for the Innovation
According to the National Health Service UK, there are 2.91 million cases of diagnosed diabetes, and the organization estimates that four million people in England risk developing Type 2 diabetes. Furthermore, by 2035, 4.94 million people in England will be affected by the condition, and this resonates with the substantial financial and health burden associated with diabetes. In the East Midlands, the prevalence of diabetes has risen by 23% between 2012 and 2017. According to the lasts data released by NHS Digital, the Midlands has the highest prevalence of diabetes in England, and as of 2019, 7.6% of people had diabetes. Although different forms of diabetes are common, Type 2 is the most prevalent type among most affected individuals. Don't use plagiarised sources.Get your custom essay just from $11/page
In the last five years, the total number of people with Type 2 Diabetes across the East Midlands has risen by 24.4%. Consequently, various health systems are encouraging people to find out their diabetes risk score and identify the right mitigation strategies for their conditions. Type 2 diabetes in the East Midlands is a critical health issue that remains a significant health concern because of the underlying consequences. With the high rate of diabetes and its associated complications in the East Midlands, about 70% of patients are at a high risk of developing other related complications besides facing the risks of cardiovascular diseases and disability. Among the most crucial contributing factors are high consumption of junk foods and lack of adequate physical exercise, which exposes the body to numerous risk factors, especially among people aged 25 and above. Again, the absence of early intervention and the lack of awareness about the risk factors expose more people to diabetes and other associated complications. These supporting factors present a broad context and justification for the proposed innovation. There is a need to manage diabetes using an innovation that could be the long-term solution to a problem that has affected the East Midlands for over a decade.
The Proposed Innovation
Diabetes Management using the innovation of blood glucose meter among the population aged 25 and above in the East Midlands UK will be executed using workshops involving community elders, healthcare workers, patients, families, school educators, and interested community members. Within these workshops, people will be educated on the critical role of this innovation in frequently monitoring blood glucose to identify any changes in blood glucose. The major hindrance to diabetes management is the fact that most people lack awareness about the massive impact that monitoring blood glucose has on their health condition. Educating the community members will be an essential step towards creating awareness on the severity of the issue and the positive impacts of the innovation relevant to other programs, which may have been less effective. Again, most community members have been hesitant to use blood glucose meters due to the lack of evidence-based knowledge that is reliable enough. Thus, through these workshops, the people will be educated on choosing the right meter, intervals for measuring blood glucose, analysing the outcomes, and implications for health care. The advantage of knowledge acquisition is that supposing an individual identifies a significant change in their blood glucose. They can seek medical attention before the condition escalates.
The Evidence Base for the Project
The evidence base for the project pertains to facts that support the validity of the innovation and the need for its implementation. The evidence fits with the local context because diabetes management can be handled at the community level when people are educated and mobilized to embrace an innovation that grants them the responsibility to monitor their health and manage diabetes for positive outcomes. Supporting evidence includes the positive results linked to blood glucose monitoring at the individual level to help more patients regulate their blood sugar through monitoring and taking the right steps to ensure they keep diabetes in control through healthy life choices. However, beyond the factor supporting how the evidence fits with the local context, there are areas of potential gaps in the proof as well as hidden assumptions that may limit the evidence. First, the assumption that monitoring blood glucose to manage diabetes may not have positive outcomes all the time because for individual patients, caring for oneself transcends beyond knowing the blood glucose level. Again, when people identify a reduction in their blood glucose levels, they may drop their healthy life choices because of the assumption that they are free from any danger. Since the project targets people in the East Midlands aged 25 and above, there could be a gap in the literature associated with identifying the validity of the innovation among other age groups. Also, the economic impacts are not considered, and that may be a barrier to project success.
Identified Patient/User Benefits
The benefits of blood glucose meter use among patients are supported by evidence that it helps in close monitoring of blood glucose to identify and manage diabetes efficiently. Another advantage is cost reduction due to the elimination of the financial burden that patients and families incur when assisting diabetic patients in managing their condition. The financial responsibility also rests on the government, and addressing the issue from the primary level can help immensely in reducing the prevalence of diabetes and the associated costs of solving the problem as a significant health issue. The innovation also has the benefit of creating awareness for people within various populations and age groups, hence providing reliable information that can be used as a reference for future practice in managing diabetes at multiple levels. The most typical way of measuring the benefits is by assessing the number of reduced cases of diabetes through better management of the risk factors after identifying them in time. Again, the benefits can be measured by evaluating community health outcomes such as improved adoption of physical exercise, elimination of junk foods in the diet, and evidence-based clinical procedures that are beneficial to health. Reduced health and financial burdens on the family and government respectively are also measures to evaluate in determining the patient benefits associated with using a blood glucose meter.
Cost and Cost Benefits
At the start of the project, £20000 will be required to conduct the initial workshops, £10000 will be channeled to monitoring BMI, while £5000 will be used to support data base. After ten years, the costs are expected to reduce by three quarters for workshops since people will be more enlightened on the innovation.
Implementation
The process of implementing innovation is likely to be hindered by some barriers to success, and they could delay the process of managing diabetes. Major barriers to success include the ingrained perceptions of patients of the blood glucose meter for assessing individual blood glucose, personal emotions associated with using the innovation, the supposed pain, complexity with using the device, family and personal motivation, and the associated costs. All these factors may affect individuals differently, but from a broader perspective, they could present barriers to success and hinder more people from using the blood glucose meter to monitor their blood glucose and manage the condition.
Timescale
Task
Period
Conduction of workshops and commencement of the use of blood glucose meters
One year
Monitoring of BMI and blood glucose
Every six months for five years
Outcome
Tenth year
Besides the barriers to success, there are specific factors that could act as signs of failure and present a framework for evaluating the chances of success with the innovation. First, after the first five years, zero progress on the reduction of blood glucose among the individuals within the East Midlands community could be a warning sign that the innovation may not be successful and, instead, is set up for failure. Again, few people embracing healthier lifestyle choices such as eating nutritious foods, avoiding junk food, and engaging in physical exercise indicate that people do not monitor their blood glucose levels. As so, they do not take the program seriously to manage diabetes.
For the risk management and sustainability plan, the program will be implemented, and after that, follow up programs will be initiated after every three months to monitor progress and evaluate the goals that have been accomplished as well as those that are yet to be achieved. Again, resources will not be channeled all at once for the same course, but instead, funds will be allocated in small amounts for various projects so that any identified barriers to success can be addressed promptly to avoid poor clinical outcomes.
Measuring Project Success
The success of each project lies in the capacity to be quantified so that the overall progress can be evaluated. In this case, improvement in patient and staff satisfaction will be the most important factors to consider in measuring project success. Thus, patient satisfaction will determine progress, and it will be measured using
Healthcare professionals at all levels will do the measurements to determine any improvements in patient welfare following the use of blood glucose meter to monitor blood glucose and assist in managing diabetes. The success of the project will be assessed using surveys that the participants will fill in the form of questionnaires to expound on their satisfaction and experience with using a blood glucose meter to monitor their blood glucose and help manage their condition. Again, the data collected from examining the change in blood glucose among patients will be reviewed and used in measuring project success.
After taking the measurements, the data will be stored in various electronic systems within designated healthcare facilities in East Midlands UK, where they can be easily retrieved and are accessible to authorized individuals. The data will then be analysed by making comparisons of blood glucose levels after every three months then making inferences and developing a pattern to determine individual progress. Analysing data may be cumbersome when done according to personal growth; hence it will be easier to group people within focus groups, and the mean values can then be identified and evaluated to make conclusions and implications for practice. Since the information will involve patient data, confidentiality will be maintained at all levels by securitization of data to make it inaccessible to unauthorised individuals. Supposing any publications are required, they will be published with authority from the individuals. However, anonymity will be maintained at all levels.
Beattie et al. (2015)
A range of educational material will be issued to every individual alongside supporting evidence of the positive impacts of using the innovation to manage diabetes as a critical health concern. The materials provided will be structured in easy to synthesise formats with adequate information structured on creating awareness and normalizing the use of blood glucose meters to help in managing diabetes. Once the program kicks off, more people in the East Midlands UK within the target age group will manage to incorporate these meters into their lifestyle and have a reliable tool for evaluating health. Progress will be determined and analysed over ten years by measuring BMI and blood glucose as crucial determining factors for diabetes risk factors. Once people normalise the practice of measuring blood glucose, it would be easier to keep their health in control because a sharp rise in blood glucose could imply looming health danger. As so, it would be easier to control blood glucose by reducing excessive salt and sugar intake, embracing physical exercise, cutting down on junk foods, and managing other factors that could trigger diabetes. The key performance indicators to measure will be a significant reduction of blood glucose and BMI among the target population due to more people embracing healthier lifestyles to reduce their risk factors for diabetes. Reduced blood glucose levels symbolise accurate monitoring and adoption of better health practices, and that will prove the success of the innovation among people aged 25 years and above.
Blood glucose meters display the total amount of glucose in the blood. Since factors such as exercise, food, stress, and medication can affect the glucose levels, it is advisable to use the meter for better management of diabetes by tracking fluctuations in the blood glucose level. Since their introduction in the UK, blood glucose meters have improved in quality, reliability, speed, and accuracy, thus providing evidence for their applicability in managing diabetes. Therefore, with the right information, people can make better choices regarding the most suitable meter that suits their needs, resulting in better blood glucose control. The necessary data provided is essential for evidence-based clinical decision-making by healthcare professionals, and blood glucose monitoring is an efficient tool for managing diabetes. The focus should be directed more on the innovation because its use among diabetic patients has not been satisfactory in the East Midlands UK, where prevalence is relatively high.
Recommendations
For the project to be successful, it would be crucial to incorporate follow up programs, and healthcare professionals should partner with the local community members to form a strong team overseeing progress. Again, financial resources are essential to ensure that more people have easy access to the devices.