Diabetes Management Programs

A Team Approach

Controlling your blood glucose can be a complicated matter. Blood glucose changes constantly. It is influenced by a host of factors such as your choice of food and how much you eat, the timing of you medication or insulin, your emotions, illnesses, your weight, and your body's resistance to insulin. Tight control is best achieved by working with your health care team. Your physician and diabetes education team can teach you how to take charge of your diabetes.

Resources at Elkhart General

Elkhart General can help by providing education for better management of diabetes through individual and group instructional sessions. The Diabetes Management Classes and the Gestational Diabetes Classes are led by a multidisciplinary group of of Certified Diabetes Nurse Educators, Registered Dietitians, and Physical Therapists.

Diabetes Management Classes

These weekly classes provide an in-depth look at diabetes and how to manage it.

Participants learn about:

• Basics of diabetes pathophysiology
• Achieving control through exercise, food planning, and medications
• How to monitor the effectiveness of your management plan
• Preventing and recognizing emergency situations
• Managing diabetes during minor illness and when to call your doctor
• Decreasing the risk of developing complications such as kidney disease, eye disease, nerve damage, cardiovascular disease
• Nutrition and food planning
• How to include your favorite foods, fast food, convenience foods, and restaurant dining in your plan of control
• Skin and foot care
• Adjustment to diagnosis and stress management
• Living with diabetes at home, school, work, and community

Gestational Diabetes Classes

These classes meet once a week for four weeks and are led by a Certified Diabetes Nurse Educator and a Registered Dietitian. Participants will learn:

• The definition of Gestational Diabetes Mellitus (GDM)
• Risks to mother and baby when mother has GDM or has Diabetes and is pregnant
• How to keep blood glucose within target range through healthy food choices, testing of blood glucose and ketones, exercise, and safe use of insulin if needed
• Healthy lifestyle patterns during and after pregnancy
• How to decrease risk of diabetes later in life

Insurance Coverage

There is a fee associated with individual and group diabetes management instruction. Most insurances and health plans health plans help cover these fees with a physician referral. Please contact your physician and insurer to see how they can partner with you in this important step in managing your diabetes.

To Learn More

For more information about the Diabetes Management Program, please call the Diabetes Program Coordinator at (574) 296-6555. To enroll in a class, please talk to your physician or call EGH Patient Scheduling at (574) 523-3444.

• Diabetes Risk Assessment
  Take this simple test, developed by the American Diabetes Association, to see if you are at risk for having or developing type 2 diabetes.