The VIrtual Diabetes Center ("VDC") is a proprietary digital health ecosystem for diabetes and other chronic diseases management; it facilitates the collaboration between healthcare providers, and Integrates patients’ self-management and lifestyle data with current health conditions and historical medical records. Utilizing proprietary automated algorithms, VDC organizes and provides such information in easy-to-review visuals, giving healthcare team members a comprehensive understanding of the relation between patients’ lifestyle, their diabetes management, and the current prescribed treatment, all which is essential for successful management of chronic diseases and improved health outcomes.

VDC consists of four separate Cloud-based applications. Each function as an independent application or as an integrated solution to provide complete diabetes-care solution based on your requirements. These are Diabetes Case Management, Patients Health Management, Patient Diabetes Self-Education and Continuing Medical Education.

Patient Education Portal

Cloud based interactive multimedia technology can be used to augment current diabetes education methods. A number of research studies have demonstrated the effectiveness of interactive multimedia diabetes education tools as an initial education following diagnoses and as continuous education for patients and their families. VDC Patient Education Portal provides patients with in-depth knowledge about type 2 diabetes and how to manage it. Following the diagnoses by family physician, patients are advised to start learning about diabetes through the Virtual Diabetes Learning Center prior to attending educational classes at the Diabetes Education Classes; this will help to motivate the patients to manage their diabetes. Delay in receiving proper education could lead to denial which is the most common barrier to diabetes self-management.

Personal Health Records

Successful management of diabetes requires continuous monitoring of multiple health indicators and lifestyle parameters such as blood sugar levels, blood pressure, physical activity, and diet by patients with the supervision of diabetes healthcare providers. The Virtual Diabetes Center’s Patient Health Record Management “MyVDC” is a user friendly, on-line health data recording and data visualization tool. MyVDC organizes and tracks the patient’s home test results, and presents the data using easy to understand visuals, and associated educational materials empowering the patient to understand how their lifestyle and treatment impacts their diabetes. Through a secured link to the Virtual Diabetes Center’s Diabetes Case Management program, healthcare teams have access to patient data for review during clinic visits and for continuous monitoring.

Diabetes Case Management

VDC's Diabetes Case Management ("DCM") is an Electronic Diabetes Visit Records based on diabetes care practical guidelines. Patient registration includes: patient demographics, diabetes history, medical history, family medical history, and cumulative profile. Detailed user friendly forms are used to capture detailed, patient-specific clinical information in a format easily reviewed by clinicians. This information includes: medication, monitoring and hypoglycemia, diet and exercise, cardiac and other complication, life style, physical exam, lab results, and vision. DCM gathers complete flow sheet data and historical medical data and facilitates sharing of recommendations between care team members. Members can use the program to produce comprehensive recommendation letters, letters to patients, and file existing forms which can easily be viewed by the entire team. The reports section of DCM includes a series of standardized reports and customizable queries for outcome analysis.

Continuing Medical Education

Diabetes treatment, medications, and guidelines are constantly changing. Our customizable system provides your organization with a tool that keeps your team up to date on the latest changes in the diabetes treatment field. The Virtual Diabetes Center's learning, content, and events management system (LCEMS) provides a multi-user environment where developers, authors, instructional designers, and subject matter experts may create, store, reuse, manage, and deliver digital educational technology content. It also provides the administration, documentation, tracking, reporting and delivery of electronic educational technology (e-learning) courses or training programs. The Virtual Diabetes Center's LCEMS provides secured instant chat room and message board for exchanging knowledge and discussions among registered users. It also has a blog and news feeder managed by the LCEMS administrator to provide registered users with the latest news in the field of diabetes management and research.

Analytics and Decision Support

VDC generates comprehensive medical reports, decision support based on clinical guidelines, and risk analysis for type 2 diabetes, CKD, and CVD. VDC’s provide comprehensive analytics tools, a series of standardized reports and customizable queries for outcome analysis. Healthcare professionals and administrators can quickly and easily generate statistics regarding patients’ clinic, medications and laboratory results, and treatment outcome using similarity analysis. These statistics and reports can be converted to PDFs and exported into Excel for integration into medical papers or for other uses. The program can also develop a recall list. Patients who have high indicators can receive automated notifications to see their healthcare team.

In many parts of the world today, the diabetes care model is based on the acute care model. In the majority of cases, the prescribed treatment for blood sugar control is based on one lab result called A1c. If a patient’s blood sugar is higher than the recommended guidelines, the usual solution is to increase the intake of insulin or other oral medication. This may have serious negative side effects that impact a patient’s quality of life if the medication is wrong or administered incorrectly.

Our proactive approach starts with knowledgeable and motivated patients who are active partners in managing their diabetes, rather than being passive recipients of care. Diabetes is complex and there are many factors that could affect blood sugar control. Also, patients’ genetic makeup affects the effectiveness and potentially adverse impact of diabetes medications.

Diabetes self-management data: diet, physical activity, sleep, stress, allergies, social activities and environmental factors are essential to understanding what affects a patient’s blood sugar levels. Such data are also indicators of preventive actions. Regular monitoring, as well as access to multidisciplinary healthcare providers, is also key to early intervention.

Community Based Diabetes Prevention and Management Model A culturally appropriate and holistic model to achieve evidence based outcomes for the prevention and management type 2 of diabetes; a patient focused approach, was developed by DTFS in association with a team of healthcare professionals specialized in diabetes prevention and management, and considerable input from patients and other stakeholders. The model was implemented at a number of First Nations in British Columbia, and has achieved significant results in terms of prevention and management of diabetes and the sustainability and ownership of the disease within the community.

The model consists of six integrated components: Awareness and Motivation, Education, Management and Monitoring, Treatment, Prevention, and Diabetes Management Software. Diabetes Nurse Educators play an integral part in the implementation of the program as the main point of contact for monitoring patients and coordinating treatment activities. This provides intimate motivational access to healthcare which permits alternative and cost-effective approaches to all aspects of diabetes management.

Currently, two mobile diabetes clinics in British Columbia are utilizing the Virtual Diabetes Center's Diabetes Case Management to serve more than 150 remote communities. Each clinic has two trained diabetes nurse educators and an eye technician, the team members travel to the communities and record the health history, complete an examination of patients, and their recommendations. In addition, a full laboratory Point-of-Care testing is completed, as recommended by the Canadian Diabetes Guidelines, and multiple field retinal photographs are taken. This information is virtually accessed by consultants in Endocrinology and Ophthalmology. As a result, complete recommendations for changes in therapy are provided “on line,” via a secure system to the primary care physicians.

In association with BC Endocrine Research Foundation, DTFS have developed a comprehensive multicultural diabetes education program, it is available as a web-based program and in DVD format. Live Well with Diabetes addresses the culture aspects that motivates people to manage their health in Cantonese, Mandarin, Punjabi, Farsi, Arabic, English, French, and Spanish.

The purpose of “Live Well with Diabetes” is to provide a combination of diabetes knowledge and self-management skills as well as heightened self-awareness regarding health, beliefs, needs, and goals. Individuals with diabetes can use this knowledge to make informed decisions about their behavior and act for their self-care. Family and friends can also gain understanding thereby providing a solid support network for the individual with diabetes.

In addition to the development of the application, DTFS has assisted in fund-raising activities, conducting pilot project to evaluate the effectiveness of the program, and in the promotion of the program through several conferences and workshops. DTFS has also produced all promotional materials and newsletters. The program was developed in 2005 and updated annually by DTFS, it is accessed by people from many countries and is used by support groups and health organizations.

Indigenous Health