Continuing to Spread the Word among Providers and Community Members: 211 can help people who have or are at-risk for Diabetes find appropriate, affordable, high-quality, long-term education and support!

The Diabetes Workgroup is requesting "all hands on deck" to be distributing this information widely across Buncombe County. We are working toward a time when residents all over the county ask their physicians, Where can I find a program that helps me change my eating habits? I want to be able to control my diabetes without insulin--is there a program that will help me? A neighbor of mine went to a program where she learned to read food labels and make simple changes for her health, and I want to do the same thing." 

And we are working toward a time when medical providers say to a patient newly-diagnosed with pre-diabetes, If you start one of the diabetes prevention programs in our community, you may be able to avoid this disease and the complications (and expense) it comes with... Call 211 and they can help you find a program that can keep you out of my office!"

Please help us share this information widely! Our community has a WEALTH of resources to help people prevent and manage diabetes and other chronic diseases... Download these resources and use them to let people know how easy it is to get connected to these programs.

Half-page Diabetes-211 flyer (without program details) 

Full-page Diabetes-211 flyer for CLIENTS (with program details)

Full-page Diabetes 211 flyer for PROVIDERS (with program details)

Getting the word out to health care providers and community members: Call 211 to find the right diabetes prevention or diabetes management program for you!

We have completed the process of reviewing program descriptions in 211 and working with 211 call specialists to make sure they are attuned to comments callers might make that would indicate a need for diabetes support. Now all collaborative members are actively looking for ways to get this information out into the community! Download and share the flyers below to spread the word!

211 Diabetes CLIENT/COMMUNITY Handout

211 Diabetes PROVIDER Handout

Partnering with 211 to create a "single entry point" for community-based diabetes prevention and management programs

One of the most consistent things we hear medical providers say when we talk to them about the SEVEN+ evidence-based, community-based diabetes prevention/management programs in Buncombe County is, "Wow, that's GREAT, but I don't have the time in a patient visit to walk a them through seven programs to find the best fit. Now if there were one phone number we could call..."

One phone number. We already HAVE one phone number. Why reinvent the wheel? Asheville is home to one of the two 211 call centers in NC, so our CHIP Diabetes Workgroup invited Marla Browne, 211 Director, to our March meeting to educate us about all the amazing work they do connecting WNC residents to a huge array of resources, from housing to childcare to medication assistance and legal help. All of the diabetes programs were already in the 211 database, but our group has been working to update the program profiles to highlight the differences between the programs and focus on what is unique to each, so a 211 Referral Specialist will have the information they need to help a caller (patient or provider) identify the best program fit.At the end of May we will meet with Referral Specialists to give them an overview of the programs, answer their questions about referring to each, and also ask them questions about cross-referring, etc. And voila! One phone number where a provider can connect patients to find the diabetes program that fits their needs.

The next step is actually promoting this to both medical providers and community members--stay tuned!

Finalizing Work Plan and Beginning Outreach

January and February brought some new faces to the Diabetes Workgroup and some new energy to tackle the challenge for so many health programs--the gap between the NEED for high-quality programs (in this case, programs to help the tens of thousands of people in our community prevent the onset of diabetes or to better manage their diabetes through simple lifestyle changes) and the DEMAND for such programs. Here is a great article from Stanford Social Innovation about this very topic. We need to figure out how to design these programs and and package them and communicate about them in such a way that community members who need them most begin to seek them out tell their neighbors and friends about them and ask their doctors for the details! Part of this begins by working WITH the community members we want to enroll from the beginning, learning from them and inviting them to shape the messages and programs that will, indeed, be appealing and meet the needs they express and not the ones we imagine they have.

We walked through and discussed/added to our work plan, which we will revisit at each meeting and tweak as necessary. We are still looking for creative ways to engage with clinicians to let them know of all the community-based programs and resources that exist in Buncombe County and give them the tools to refer their clients directly, and progress has been made in that area with specific providers. Our next meeting, on March 20, will include a presentation from our local 211 director, Marla Browne, about how we might partner more closely with 211 to make that a "single entry point" for all the diabetes resources in the community.

For more information about this workgroup, its goals, action items, etc., please click "Workgroup Overview" on the right sidebar. You can also click here to see the Community Scorecard--local diabetes data, active partners, current initiatives and community strategies.