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Enhancing the capacity of the health workforce to deliver best practice diabetes care

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journal contribution
posted on 2022-09-01, 01:32 authored by G Murfet, Ashley NgAshley Ng, V Hagger, S Davidson, G Ward, B Fenton, B Rasmussen
Diabetes prevalence is increasing; the technologies and medicines used to manage diabetes have become more complex, and the specialist health workforce with qualifications in diabetes is insufficient. Generalist health professionals have limited diabetes knowledge, despite engaging with people with diabetes in healthcare daily. An innovative framework is needed to align with the Australian National Diabetes Strategy to build a competent, flexible and adaptive workforce to promote excellence in diabetes care. A three-staged modified Delphi technique was used to identify a consensus Capability Framework for Diabetes Care (the 'Framework'). An implementation phase followed, involving representation from people with diabetes and key health professional organisations to co-design and implement the 'Framework'. The 'Framework' can guide curricula at universities and TAFE institutes, and the professional development and practice of Australian nurses, allied health professionals, First Nations Australians health workers and practitioners, pharmacists, midwives and health assistants when delivering care to people living with diabetes. The 'Framework' defines nine core capabilities that healthcare providers require to deliver diabetes care effectively, underpinned by three sets of attributes for seven practice levels to enable the workforce. Information within the practice levels provides a nationally consistent approach to learning and training different healthcare providers in the essential elements of diabetes care. A 'living' evidence-based national 'Framework' for the whole health workforce and associated online resources will help promote a more responsive health workforce delivering better and more equitable diabetes care.

Funding

The evaluation study is funded by a Australian Diabetes Educator Association - Diabetes Research Foundation Research Fellowship grant. The National Partnership Agreement on Improving Health Services in Tasmania (Tasmanian Wellness Project) funded a clinical scholarship to GM during 2019 PhD studies.

History

Publication Date

2022-07-19

Journal

Australian Health Review

Volume

46

Issue

4

Pagination

5p. (p. 496-500)

Publisher

CSIRO PUBLISHING

ISSN

0156-5788

Rights Statement

© 2022 The Author(s) (or their employer(s)). Published by CSIRO Publishing on behalf of AHHA. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND)