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With a large footprint of 94 hospitals spanning 22 states, Trinity Health needed to deliver standardized care that could be implemented quickly for their 4.5 million patients with prediabetes and hypertension. The health system began implementing processes in 2018 to identify and refer patients at five sites to a National Diabetes Prevention Program lifestyle change program, and in 2019 they adopted the AMA’s M.A.P. BP Improvement Program as their systemwide effort on hypertension. The AMA and Trinity Health continue to work together to reduce the prevalence of hypertension and type 2 diabetes with a population health approach to chronic disease prevention.

With approximately 575,000 people in Louisiana having diabetes, leaders at CareSouth – a federally qualified health center – knew they needed to improve the quality of life for patients through prevention. Working together with the AMA, CareSouth launched its diabetes prevention strategy in 2018, allowing patients with prediabetes a free pass to participate in the YMCA of Capital Area’s National Diabetes Prevention Program (National DPP) lifestyle change program.

To make the case for implementing a National Diabetes Prevention Program lifestyle change program, leaders at a Wisconsin-based health system presented compelling data to key organizational stakeholders. Thanks to their efforts in corralling the “right people at the right time,” decreased A1C and cholesterol levels were just part of the favorable outcomes demonstrated by participants at the close of the pilot program.

The AMA launched a webinar series aimed at guiding primary care clinics to create CDC-recognized lifestyle change programs proven effective to treat prediabetes. The Pennsylvania Association of Community Health Centers (PACHC) offered the series to its group of health centers and to date, one organization has launched its diabetes prevention program, with two more set to start in 2019.

A one-size-fits-all approach to prediabetes treatment does not work for all patients. Intermountain Healthcare, headquartered in Salt Lake City, offers three pathways to help patients find the right journey toward preventing type 2 diabetes. Since 2013, more than 10,000 patients have completed one of three pathways for diabetes prevention at Intermountain.

In collaboration with the American Medical Association, Henry Ford Macomb Hospital established a robust prediabetes registry designed to relieve clinical practice burden and ease the process of identifying patients and managing their prediabetes. The registry can serve as a model for health systems to be able to prevent new cases of type 2 diabetes and get patients enrolled in a CDC-recognized lifestyle change program.  The registry provided physicians with a decision support to manage and monitor patients resulting in increased referrals and enrollments in the lifestyle change program.

Loma Linda University Health demonstrated the benefits of building a leadership team to implement a CDC-recognized lifestyle change program.  Building on the system’s emphasis on lifestyle and prevention, it was motivated to establish an internal taskforce, develop a plan and secure funding to offer their first cohort.  Participants were recruited from four clinical departments. This multi-disciplinary team is essential to program development, implementation and sustainability.

Access to diabetes prevention programs expanded to reach more patients as part of Intermountain Healthcare’s multi-faceted diabetes prevention strategy. The health care organization is currently offering its patients a CDC-recognized lifestyle change program exclusively online. Though the digital program participants reported positive outcomes. Intermountain Healthcare offers an in-person offering, Weigh to Health, as well as medical nutrition therapy and a 2 hour introduction to prediabetes for patients and families.