We guide healthcare professionals in a solution-focused approach so clients can embrace possibilities, opportunities, and a fresh vision for the future.
Self-care is how you take your power back. – Lalah Delia
We recently returned from the ADCES23 conference in HOT Houston and are still processing all that we heard and learned from the speakers and exhibitors! This was an extra special conference as we were celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the Association. As Past Presidents, both Tami and Deb were recognized on-stage during the opening session. There were so many special events and opportunities to network with colleagues and friends, both old and new.
As we close out our summer self-care series, two sessions that particularly resonated with us that we want to share were presented by. Lauren Plunkett, RDN, LD, CDCDES, Frame a Healthy Relationship with Food Using Nutrition-Focused Language Skills and an engaging presentation by co-presenters Dr. Natalie Bellini, Dr. Diana Isaacs, and Dr. Sean Oser, Use Time in Range to Congratulate, Celebrate, Recognize, Align and Partner. (Lauren’s presentation is available On-Demand if you registered for the conference and didn’t catch it live.) All of these speakers emphasized the power of words and how we, as healthcare professionals (HCPs), can inspire self-care through the words that we use by using empowering language.
Optimistic Coaching & A Positive Food Vocabulary
Lauren, a person living with diabetes (PWD) reminded us that PWD have it in themselves to be exceptional! She acknowledged the significant impact that diabetes has on emotional health and that awareness of emotional health can help sharpen communication skills.She encouraged leading client/patient encounters with a positive attitude and engaging in “optimistic coaching” to support self–efficacy and quality of life. GIven that she’s an RDN, her particular focus was around addressing immediate needs and using positive food vocabulary, such as “colorful”, “flavorful”, “nourishing”, and “abundance”. She reframed food as “energetic nourishment” and that eaters focus on quality and addition (such as eating more plants, more fiber) rather than subtraction.
Asking Questions and Focusing on the Positive
During the discussion on time in range (TIR) the speakers emphasized that getting to know your patients can help to understand their daily lives which will lead to a greater understanding of their challenges and successes with diabetes management. When reviewing ambulatory glucose profile (AGP) data, HCPs were encouraged to find something positive to discuss, no matter how small. Only focusing on the negative is not empowering. As we @AFreshPOVforYou have discussed before, these presenters reminded the audience to not focus on data as “good” or “bad” but as neutral in order to help reduce the stigma often associated with diabetes. In addition, the presenters recommended technology to support people with diabetes in their management. While this ADCES23 presentation is not on-demand, we’re told there may be a repeat at the December ADCES Technology Conference.
We welcome anyone interested in our approach to Subscribe to our blog and we’ll email you when a new post is published!
If you are a health care professional and interested in learning more about our solution-focused practice and approach, when you subscribe to our blog, we’ll send you in return a FREE resource of 10 Solution-Focused Questions to start a solution-focused discussion with your clients.
Follow us on Twitter and Instagram @AFreshPOVforYou
Deb is employed by Dexcom, but her words and opinions in this blog are her own.
Tami is employed by the University of Kentucky HealthCare Barnstable Brown Diabetes Center, but her words and opinions in this blog are her own.
Problem talk can create problems. Solution talk creates solutions. – Steve de Shazer, pioneer of solution-focused brief therapy
Our last blog wrapped up a series of posts on transforming primary care encounters by taking a solution-focused approach when managing type 2 diabetes in the primary care setting. This series has received overwhelming positive feedback. We were excited when an abstract we submitted on the topic to ADCES22 conference was accepted for presentation! If you will be attending the conference in Baltimore, we’d love to have you join us on Friday August 12 at 4:45 pm where we will share 7 tactics for your diabetes education toolbox to transform primary care visits. In large part, the tactics can be applied to other practice settings as well.
Without a doubt, managing diabetes is complex. We know that constant focus on “problems” can erode confidence. So clients/patients may turn to us, their healthcare team, looking for guidance to do something different. Stepping alongside our clients/patients as a “think partner” allows working together to identify solutions to move the individual forward towards achieving their health goals.
Implementing solution-focused tactics leads to greater individualization of care through a brief intervention. We’ll give you a sneak peek of what we’ll share in our presentation…
We’ll be discussing each of these, providing a multitude of practical tips to implement them, and provide real-life examples.
Action Plan for Change
1.Identifies solutions (instead of problems) and how to make the exceptions happen more often.
2.Focuses on doing more of things that are going well (not on doing new things).
3.Identifies small steps to take toward what is desired (instead of what is NOT wanted).
4.Identify strengths one has/uses to help manage diabetes every day.
5.Considers how positive thinking and action affects life.
6.Recognizes what worked.
Stop back by in 2 weeks when we’ll share our favorite behavioral sessions we attended at the ADCES22 conference!
We welcome anyone interested in our approach to Subscribe to our blog and we’ll email you when a new post is published!
If you are a health care professional and interested in learning more about our solution-focused practice and approach, when you subscribe to our blog, we’ll send you in return a FREE resource of 10 Solution-Focused Questions to start a solution-focused discussion with your clients.
Follow us on Twitter @AFreshPOVforYou
Deb is employed by Dexcom, but her words and opinions in this blog are her own.
Tami is employed by the University of Kentucky HealthCare Barnstable Brown Diabetes Center, but her words and opinions in this blog are her own.
With the Association of Diabetes Care and Education Specialists Annual meeting (formerly AADE) right around the corner, we’re taking a brief break from our solution-focused word of the week series to highlight some of the sessions that will be presented at the ADCES meeting on psychosocial and behavioral health and technology. They align with our thinking and approach, and we thought might be of interest to you too.
This typically in-person meeting is always one of our favorite times of the year! It is such a great opportunity to reconnect with friends and colleagues while being energized about the work we do in diabetes care and education. However, in light of the pandemic, this year’s meeting (like many others) has gone virtual. So it is with mixed emotions that we share this ADCES preview. While we look forward to learning from colleagues in the comfort of our homes this year, we so wish times were different and we could share coffee or lunch together, catch up on everyone’s lives over a glass of wine, give a lot of hugs, and dance the night away at the annual Sunday night dance party. Especially for the two of us, we have not been together in person since last October. One of our hopes in collaborating on this blog together was that we’d have the opportunity to spend more in-person time together. While we engage via Zoom, it’s just not the same.
We’re excited to share that we had an abstract accepted to present as an oral session at the originally scheduled in-person meeting in Atlanta on “Flipping the Paradigm: Applying a Solution-Focused Approach to the AADE7 Self-Care Behaviors”! But due to the condensed nature of the virtual meeting we opted out, with the hope that we can share our full presentation next year (fingers crossed!). In the meantime, we’ve had our first research paper incorporating a solution-focused approach published! You can find it online, Applying a Solution-Focused Approach to Life With Diabetes: Insights Gleaned via Twitter. This paper resulted from our presentation at the European Association for the Study of Diabetes last fall. We report the findings of our online study where we employed the Miracle Question approach during a Twitter chat. 5 themes evolved of a desired future state: more of living life; laughter and humor; self-compassion; resilience; and support.
Here are 6 of the sessions of interest that you may want to check out (all times are central time zone):
This session will provide the participant with an understanding of the history and impact of structural racism on health equity. Throughout the presentation, Dr. Blackstone will define structural racism and how it relates to the social determinants of health. The participant will leave the session with key strategies to make individual steps toward interacting with equity.
African Americans face many challenges associated with diabetes self-management and it is common for them to fall into negative thinking patterns. Researchers suggest that positive thinking can lead to improved diabetes management and empowerment to foster independence, self-management and the ability to question and make informed choices. This presentation offers 6 positive thinking strategies that can be utilized to assist in empowering the African American participant.
New and emerging technologies can help people with diabetes optimize glucose levels, reduce diabetes burden, achieve improved quality of life, and reduce the risk of acute and chronic complications. Diabetes care and education specialists and clinical practices are struggling to keep up with the pace of technological change. While essential, expertise in diabetes technology is not enough. There must also be processes in place to streamline paperwork and documentation, optimize clinical flow, educate staff and providers, and obtain reimbursement. This session will provide an overview of how diabetes technology can be effectively integrated into the clinical paradigm and discuss the role of the diabetes care and education specialist as the clinic’s technology expert and champion.
A significant portion of the U.S. population is vulnerable to severe complications, including death, from COVID-19. In addition, social disruptions secondary to the pandemic response are creating new vulnerabilities in the provision of chronic disease care and self-management for non-pandemic illnesses. This presentation will expand foundational knowledge of the impact of COVID-19 on people with diabetes and provide strategies through education and technology to protect adults with diabetes from COVID-19 while reducing gaps in diabetes care and self-management.
This presentation will explain how diabetes psychology is used to help people implement new behaviors, navigate social stressors and manage the feelings of anxiety, depression and stress that often accompany diabetes. A discussion of similarities and differences between diabetes psychology and diabetes services will be provided. A model for integrating diabetes psychology with diabetes services will be described with examples of implementation at the San Diego VA hospital.
Mindfulness benefits veterans with depression and PTSD, but little is known about the impact of mindfulness in those with diabetes. This presentation will share our experiences and participant perspectives of a mindfulness-based diabetes education intervention that utilizes a digital application to support daily mindfulness in everyday life. Additionally, we will examine associations between mindfulness, diabetes distress (DD), stress-related symptoms, and glycemic management (A1C) and show how incorporating a mindfulness intervention into DSMES can target both DD and A1C in at-risk populations.
Also, check out Deb’s 2 research presentations, one oral and one poster:
Not all participants achieve DPP outcomes. Identifying opportunities to augment, enrich and enhance the traditional program are needed to meet individual needs. This session will present data from a 12-month observational study that evaluated the effectiveness of an innovative, behaviorally enriched Diabetes Prevention Program (DPP), on program outcomes of attendance, weight loss and physical activity. This innovative, coach-led, behaviorally-enriched DPP was designed specifically to engage and motivate a “hard to reach”, mobile population at risk for developing type 2 diabetes using a behavior and social assessment and decision support tool set to facilitate a practical behavior change model (Information, Motivation, Skills) integrated into routine team care delivery and clinical software applications. Note: Sarah Downs and Alyssa Griswold contributed as co-authors on this submission.
Diabetes is twice as likely to affect Hispanic people than their Caucasian counterparts. Our previous community-based participatory research demonstrated that technology in addition to social support is necessary to effect diabetes-related behaviour change in Hispanic individuals with type 2 diabetes (T2DM). In this feasibility study, we address gaps in diabetes care for Hispanic people with T2DM by combining technology with an online peer support intervention. The inclusion of Hispanic, Spanish-speaking peer facilitators with diabetes lived experience will enable culturally appropriate discussion, advice and strategies to enhance the use of CGM and improve diabetes outcomes in participants. This poster presentation will describe the study background, methodology and intervention protocol.
Also, please consider attending the Dexcom Educational Theater on Thursday, August 13, 2020 at 2:45 pm CT, Lighting the Fire: Bringing DSMES to Life with CGMwith Dr. Bill Polonsky and Dr. Diana Isaacs. During this session, Dr. Diana Isaacs incorporates solution-focused principles when discussing CGM data with her clients.* This program is open to anyone whether attending the conference or not. You can register here.
We welcome anyone interested in our approach to Subscribe to our blog and we’ll email you when a new post is published!
If you are a health care professional and interested in learning more about our solution-focused practice and approach, when you subscribe to our blog, we’ll send you in return a FREE resource of 10 Solution-Focused Questions to start a solution-focused discussion with your clients.
Follow us on Twitter and Instagram @AFreshPOVforYou
*Note: Deb is employed by Dexcom but anything posted on this blog is her personal opinion.
