Guarantee for an Integrated Management of Diabetes Mellitus
The Diabetes Team
A person suffering from diabetes mellitus needs the support of a functioning, multidisciplinary therapeutic team in order to cope with his/her chronic illness. Patients with this chronic disease generally depend on a particularly experienced companionship and support in order to responsibly and permanently integrate the necessary therapeutic measures into their everyday life. The need for professional management and counseling is also increasing due to the current demographic developments with the many elderly, chronically ill people who can no longer adequately cope with their personal care and due to the declining number of relatives who thus will not be available in future to long-standing support.
The guarantee for an integrated assistance in the sense of case management between outpatient and inpatient treatment and support is necessary in order to bring the several specialties relevant for diabetes together in a homogeneous process chain and to minimize the revolving door effect. People with diabetes mellitus are expected to adjust their life-style to the clinical situation, thus effective instruction and counseling are absolutely essential for therapeutic success.
In diabetology, these tasks are performed by non-medical, advisory professions. Here patients with diabetes mellitus are counseled against the background of their individual requirements according to the respective life situation and individual educational prerequisites. For this not only a personal enthusiasm but also appropriate further education are necessary and this has been realized since 1983 by the further education facilities commissioned by the German Diabetes Society. The so-called Bologna process has also made undergraduate training in this specialty possible. The present article briefly outlines the development of the field of activity of the diabetes team for modern diabetes management and presents qualification possibilities and developments in the non-medical advisory sector of diabetology.