In a community of 2469 first nation’s people, there is a cumulative of 149 first nation’s people with type 2 diabetes. Three had amputations below the knee. They all live in a semi-remote northern Manitoba. They have very limited resources and services. The only nursing station available is understaffed and they take an hour drive to reach the nearest hospital. This paper is a program proposal for a diabetes education program that will include nutrition, care, exercise, and treatment. (Stamler and Yiu, 2008) Goals and objectives of the program There are various goals and objectives of the diabetes education program.
One of the aims of the diabetes education program is to educate the community on the best diet and nutrition that they can adopt so as to live healthier lives. This also includes educating the people on the best nutrition that they should maintain to avoid getting type two diabetes. This can help prevent more cases of the disease in the area. The diabetes education program also aims at helping patients and the rest of the community easily access exercise facilities. This is by educating them on the need for exercise in dealing with the issue of diabetes.
An equipped facility will help these community live healthier lives. (Vollman and McFarlane, 2008) The facility will have equipment that even amputated people in the community can use for exercise purposes. The program also intends to offer treatment to already infected patients. This is where the patients will be examined by professional and experienced doctors. They will then be given medicine to take which have to be given for free or fair to the patients. The program aims at offering all the relevant treatment to the diabetes patients in this community.
This diabetes program also aims at delivering consistent service to this community. In this case, the program will ensure that doctors are always available for the people in the community for twenty four hours. There will always be nurses at the facility every day even on holidays such that the service is consistent. (Vollman and McFarlane, 2008) The program aims at having open communication with all the people in the community. This is where nurses will travel to most remote areas to educate and communicate with the people on how to handle the issue of diabetes.
There will be telephones that will be always open for the people to call any time of the day. The people will be given the telephone contacts even those in the most remote regions. This program will highly aim at encouraging face to face communication with the community. This will avoid misunderstanding between the stakeholders like healthcare givers and the patients etc. (Vollman and McFarlane, 2008) This program will also offer foot care education and facilities. This is considering the fact that people who suffer from diabetes face myriad foot problems.
Careful foot care can help to prevent majority of these complications. They include ulcers, deformities, bunions, calluses, poor circulation and nerve damage. The program will ensure that patients are constantly examined and advised on daily foot care habits needed. The program aims at giving special foot care to the diabetes patients. This is aimed at preventing the loss of more limbs among the people in the community. (Mayfield and Reiber, 2004) Description of the target aggregate group The target aggregate group consists of an aggregate of one hundred and forty nine first nations’ people with type two diabetes.
Three of these people underwent knee amputations due to different foot complications. This program however aims at benefiting the entire community of approximately two thousand four hundred people. This target group of people lives in a living in semi-remote region of northern Manitoba. Research carried out in this region reveals that there are no hospitals in a close proximity where these people can easily visit. These people have to travel for one hour in order to reach the nearest hospital. This makes it quite hard for majority of them to get essential treatment and education on managing diabetes.
The region has very limited services. The physical infrastructure in this region is not up to date and that hinders their quick transport to the hospital. There are no places where the people can go for their exercises. There is one nursing station that is quite understaffed making it hard for all the patients to be attended to. Furthermore the nursing station lacks equipment and facilities and does not provide diabetes education to the community. This can be due to the overwhelming work for the few nurses at the station. (Stamler and Yiu, 2008)
Majority of the target group of people are living below the poverty line and this makes it quite hard for them to save money so that they can get to hospital. The target group of people involve themselves with farm work during most of their day time. This hinders them to travel to other health facilities that are far to get information on how to prevent and manage diabetes. This community has most of the people who have very low per capita income in the whole nation. They cannot easily access health information because they stay in a very remote region.
There is very limited access to technologically updated information such as internet among other communication networks. Forty percent of the population’s adults are not so learned and this makes them ignorant to diverse means of accessing information about managing diabetes. Approach to be utilized In implementing this program, different approaches will be utilized. This is such that the effectiveness of the diabetes education program is maximized. A behavioral approach will be incorporated. This is where the overall behavior of the people will be thoroughly analyzed and strategies put in place.
Some of their behaviors may be adopted in trying to reach out to them. This is to identify with them so that the educators can find a way of educating them. After identifying with them, nurses will educate them on behaviors that encourage diabetes disease and those that do not. This will help a great deal in solving the problem. A lifestyle approach will also be used in the process of educating the community. This is where the health workers will analyze the lifestyle of the people in the community and clearly indicate factors that could be enhancing diabetes disease.
This includes their eating habits and if they carry out any exercises. This will enable health workers to educate them on areas that they have to improve if they really want healthier lives. This includes ensuring that they have enough exercise for each day. (Stamler and Yiu, 2008) Socio-environmental approach will also be highly used in this venture. This is where the educators will have to befriend the people in the community first. This will be initiated by helping them in some of their daily activities. It is quite easy for someone to listen to a friend than a stranger.
After initiating a friendship, the nurses will then educate them on the necessary aspects concerning prevention and treatment of diabetes. All these approaches will help increase the chances of success of the diabetes education program. Stakeholders who will be involved There are various ‘players’ who will be involved in program planning, implementation and evaluation. Planning of this program will be carried out by the vision bearer who is a physician. He will be assisted by three other doctors and one nurse. Their roles will be to put relevant plans in place.
These include plans about the resources that will be needed such as finances, medicine, equipment and human resources. (Vollman and McFarlane, 2008) They will plan on when, how, what and where aspects of the program. They will do this in writing to ensure that the plans can later on be counter checked to see whether they were achieved or not. Implementation of this program will be carried out by eight nurses and two doctors. The role of the nurses will be to educate the people on how to prevent and live with diabetes. The nurses will have to demonstrate to the people aspects of foot care and exercising.
They will help in general nursing duties like injecting patients etc. Doctors will examine and prescribe treatment to the patients. Evaluation will be carried out by the stakeholders who planned in conjunction with an external auditor and doctor. (Stamler and Yiu, 2008) Evaluation strategies There are various evaluation strategies that will be used. They include cost evaluation. This is whereby the total expenditure will be analyzed whether it was worthwhile or not. This is also whether funds were used for the intended purpose or not. This will be carried out by the external auditors.
This will be carried out yearly. Another evaluation strategy that will be used is overall continuous monitoring of performance. (Stamler and Yiu, 2008) This will be carried out by the planners to ensure that performance continues as per the laid down plans. This will include the evaluation of each of the implementers’ performance. There will also be the evaluation of the impact of the program to the community. This will include carrying out a survey in the community to ascertain the degree that the program impacted the people in the community.
This will also be carried out yearly. Connell and Kubisch, 1995) Conclusion The diabetes education program will have various goals and objectives. They include educating target group of people on aspects of nutrition, care and exercise. The program will also help in treatment of diabetes patients in the community. It will ensure that there is consistent service delivery, foot care and have communication with all people involved. The target aggregate group consists of 149 people with type two diabetes and the community of 2469 people in total. They live in a semi-remote area of northern Manitoba.
Various approaches will be used such as behavioral, social-environmental and lifestyle. These will maximize the chances of success of the project. There are different stakeholders who will be involved in planning, implementation and evaluation of the program. Diverse evaluation strategies will be used in evaluation of the diabetes education program. They include cost evaluation, performance evaluation and impact evaluation. The budget for this program is approximated to be one hundred and forty three thousand dollars. All these when well implemented, will see the health of people this community being improved.
