Davida F. Kruger, MSN, APN-BC, BC-ADM
Ms. Kruger has been a certified nurse practitioner in diabetes at Henry Ford Health System in Detroit, MI, for more than 35 years. Ms. Kruger has been a co-investigator on numerous studies of diabetes interventions and care, including the National Institutes of Health–funded multicenter EDIC and ACCORD trials.
She is a past Chair of the American Diabetes Association (ADA) Research Foundation and has served on the ADA Research Policy Committee. She is also an ADA Past President (Health Care and Education). She has also served as editor-in-chief of 2 American Diabetes Association (ADA) journals, Diabetes Spectrum and Clinical Diabetes.
Our diabetes clinic in Detroit is ground zero for diabetes care and education.
High-risk obstetrician gynecologists, cardiologists, nephrologists, and primary care providers, which are all specialties seeing more patients with type 2 diabetes (T2D) comorbidities, are coming to us or sharing patient cases to learn more about diabetes care, newer medications, and the technology needed to help disease management. Considering the complexity of the disease, its comorbidities, the long list of medications, and the human skills required to help these individuals, our clinic has long considered that patients are better served by a team of providers with experience in the intricacies and nuances of this chronic disease.
With over 40 years in the trenches, I can write without equivocation that the treatment of patients with diabetes requires a team approach involving diabetes educators, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, pharmacists, physicians, and nutritionists, who have long known that diabetes is a serious, deadly disease.
Some facts to prove my point:
When I started treating people with diabetes, 4% of the US population had the disease. Life expectancy was about 74 years. Today, 11% of the population has diabetes, and life expectancy is closer to 78 years. Longer life, for someone with diabetes, means more time with kidney disease, cardiovascular problems, neuropathy, macular degeneration, and more.T2D is no longer just an adult disease. We are treating T2D in a much younger population. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says from 2002 to 2015, the incidence rate for people <20 years rose 4.8% per year.
In 2019, the World Health Organization said that 16,300 people < 25 years old died from diabetes, and most of these deaths were from type 1 diabetes.
If we maintain the status quo, between now and 2050, 33% of the adult population in this country could have this disease.
Our clinic has enrolled at least 3500 patients with some type of diabetes.
The list of therapies ─ and more importantly the different classes of therapies ─ has grown significantly since the time when sulfonylureas, metformin, and insulin were the only therapies available. Today, there are at least 9 classes of medications to treat type 2 diabetes.
Considering that patients with T2D, most of whom are overweight or obese, also have heart disease, kidney disease, and more, the collective input from various kinds of healthcare providers to discuss how these medications can work together, or not, is beyond beneficial. The literature shows that a multidisciplinary team improves patient outcomes in the T2D population. The literature also shows that despite therapeutic advances, most of these patients have disease that is not well controlled, for a variety of reasons.