ADA enlists mobile health, Beacon Communities to manage diabetes

The American Diabetes Association (ADA) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) are working with the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC) to increase the use of IT in diabetes management.

The work will help individuals better prevent and manage diabetes and its complications, with a focus on campaigns that will be launched by ONC Beacon Communities in Detroit and New Orleans in the fall. The Southeast Michigan Beacon Community in Detroit and Crescent City Beacon Community in New Orleans will launch new public health campaigns leveraging mobile health technology to help individuals assess their risk of type 2 diabetes and provide them with information and access to local health and wellness resources.

Both cities are partnering with mobile health provider Voxiva to develop and provide these services, according to the Alexandria, Va.-based American Diabetes Association. The model for this project is the national Text4Baby campaign that uses text messages to deliver evidence-based health tips to pregnant women and new parents.

During the next two months, the association and the CDC will work with ONC, the Beacon Community grantees and Voxiva to design and deploy new campaigns and test them in these two large urban areas, which will also inform the work of other Beacon Communities, the association stated. The public health campaigns will also be designed to evaluate the effectiveness of this approach in connecting people at risk of diabetes to the care they need. 

The ADA, CDC, ONC and Beacon Communities will work with other stakeholders interested in running similar campaigns in the future to foster effective use of health IT in addressing healthcare challenges, the association stated. 

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