After adjusting for population, age and sex differences, average medical expenditures among people with diagnosed diabetes were 2.3 times higher than what expenditures would be in the absence of diabetes, according to 2011 data from the American Association of Diabetes.

Hudson River HealthCare (HRHC), a network of 16 federally qualified community health centers located across six counties in New York's Hudson Valley, uses a patient-centered team of physicians, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, RNs, LPNs, medical assistants (MAs), certified diabetes educators, nutritionists and community health workers (Patient Care Partners) to manage its diabetic population.

HRHC's Diabetes Collaborative program, in place for over 12 years, combines attributes from both the Institute for Health Improvement and the Wagner Chronic Care Model, to manage diabetic care for more than 3,400 adult patients.

Listen to pre-conference comments from Kathy Brieger.

During Diabetes Management in the Medical Home, a 45-minute webinar on January 26, 2012, now available for replay, Kathy Brieger, R.D., C.D.E., chief operations officer at HRHC, shared the inside details on the diabetes management program and the program's impact on its diabetic patients. Brieger provided the inside details on how to:

• Identify and assess patients for diabetes management, including an analysis of literacy and learning and social barriers that could impact outcomes for complex patients;
• Train staff and report quality data to drive further performance improvement;
• Use "Conversation Maps," other self management support programs and community resources in diabetes education; and
• Assign measures for program evaluation and reimbursement, along with the results Hudson River has achieved.

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You can listen to this program right in your office and enjoy significant savings — no travel time or hassle; no hotel expenses. It's so convenient! Invite your staff members to gather around a conference table to watch the program.

WHO WILL BENEFIT FROM THIS CONFERENCE?

Presidents/CEOs, chief operating officers, vice presidents, medical directors, case managers, quality improvement executives, disease management directors, managers and coordinators and health plan executives.

ABOUT OUR PANELIST:

Kathy Brieger

HRHC's four-pronged approach to weight management targets a challenging aspect of controlling diabetes.

Katherine Brieger serves as the chief operating officer of Hudson River HealthCare, a network of 16 Federally Qualified Health Centers. In addition, she coordinates all activities for the Health Disparities Collaboratives in Hudson River HealthCare. She has served on the national faculty for the Health Disparities Collaboratives of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement and the Bureau of Primary Health Care for four years.

Briegers main area of focus has been on diabetes, nutrition and health promotion. Among the special population groups she has worked with and developed programs for are migrant and seasonal farm workers and new immigrants living in urban settings as well as homeless shelters.

Brieger has lectured to a number of groups on the management of diabetes, nutrition intervention and health promotion including the National Institutes of Health, National Association of Community Health Centers and the National Nutrition Summit-White House Conference on Hunger.

She also serves on the New York State Department of Healths Diabetes Task Force and the National Center for Farmworker Health's Breast and Cervical Cancer Education Project Task Force. She served for three years and is a past chair of the USDA National Nutrition Advisory Council for Women, Infant and Children.

Brieger holds a bachelors degree in nutrition sciences from the College of Saint Elizabeth; Convent Station, N.J., and a masters degree in clinical nutrition from New York University, New York, N.Y.