Association of Diabetes Care & Education Specialists Awarded $2.5M in Funding by the Helmsley Charitable Trust to Grow Its Danatech Technology Hub to Support the Full Diabetes Care Team With New Coverage and Point-of-Care Tools

CHICAGO, Illinois, March 1 (TNSOps) -- The Association of Diabetes Care and Education Specialists issued the following news release:

The Association of Diabetes Care & Education Specialists (ADCES) has been awarded a $2.5 million grant over three years by The Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust to grow and expand danatech - ADCES' provider-focused diabetes technology website. Through this funding, ADCES will create an open platform available to all healthcare professionals who work with people with diabetes, including those in primary care and pharmacy settings. ADCES will use the funds to create new education, resources and tools to help busy healthcare professionals integrate diabetes technology into practice and more effectively meet the needs of their patients with diabetes. As part of the grant funding, ADCES will also create new diabetes technology coverage resources including an interactive health insurance coverage map and database and will partner with the Barbara Davis Center for Diabetes PANTHER (Practical Advanced THERapies for Diabetes) Program to develop point of care tools.

"At Helmsley, we believe that every person living with diabetes should have access to the technology and resources to enable them to improve their health and lives," said Deniz Dalton, Program Officer for the Helmsley Charitable Trust's Type 1 Diabetes (T1D) Program. "Expanding danatech's reach to all diabetes care team members, who are in a critical position to help people reap the full benefits of diabetes technologies, is a crucial step in achieving better outcomes."

ADCES first launched danatech in August 2018 as a one-stop resource for diabetes technology information, training, news and more. Thanks to the generous support of the Helmsley Charitable Trust through an initial three-year grant in 2018, ADCES created and sustained danatech as a resource for diabetes care and education specialists and a small group of other healthcare professionals including school nurses and endocrinology PAs. As more people with diabetes use diabetes technology and new diabetes devices and technologies are emerging into the market, ADCES believes danatech can serve a broader network of healthcare professionals by developing device-specific resources and reimbursement and coverage information to help providers incorporate diabetes technology into workflows.

"ADCES views danatech as a comprehensive education and resource pathway for all members of the diabetes care team to become competent and skilled with diabetes technologies," said Jan Kavookjian, PhD, MBA, FAPhA, FADCES, 2022 ADCES President. "We are grateful to the Helmsley Charitable Trust for providing us with this grant funding opportunity to expand the reach of danatech to serve the broader diabetes care team."

As part of the danatech grant extension, ADCES will work with the Barbara Davis Center for Diabetes PANTHER Program to develop easy to access continuous glucose monitor (CGM)-focused point of care clinical tools, which will include brief visual and written overviews of how to access and change device settings as well as diabetes device coding and billing information.

"The rapid increase in diabetes technologies has created new opportunities for people with diabetes. This has also created new challenges for providers who struggle to stay current in expertise," said Laurel H. Messer, Ph.D., RN, CDCES, Assistant Professor of Pediatrics, PANTHER Program. "Incorporating point of care tools into danatech will help providers stay up-to-date on the latest in diabetes technology."

ADCES will work with the Barbara Davis Center for Diabetes PANTHER Program, the Helmsley Charitable Trust, ADCES' diabetes care and education specialist members and other stakeholders to expand danatech in the coming weeks and months. ADCES plans to launch an updated danatech platform in 2022.