March Partner Spotlight

Past NDEP Chair Marti Funnell Highlights the Emotional Aspects of Diabetes. As a trained diabetes educator and nurse, Marti Funnell understood the importance of patient-centered care long before it became a catch phrase in the era of health care reform. Funnell, a national leader in diabetes education, was the first non-physician to serve as National Diabetes Education Program (NDEP) Chair from 2008 until 2011, and she has worked as an associate research scientist at the University of Michigan Medical School’s Department of Learning Health Sciences since 2012. Her range of experience in both research and practice—which includes working as a staff nurse at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Ann Arbor, Mich. early in her career—prepared her for what excites her most in her profession today: a greater focus on patient-centered care and the emotional side of diabetes. As she explained, the NDEP spent many years developing and promoting messages on what patients should do, but that was not enough to help people change their lifestyles and improve their health. “We gave a lot of messages that you need to exercise and eat better, but everybody kind of knows that,” Funnell said. What the NDEP had not done, she continued, was explain exactly how people can also make those lifestyle changes. “You don’t just change behavior based on knowledge. You have to understand the ‘why,’ and it’s also helping ...
Source: National Diabetes Education Program - Category: Endocrinology Source Type: news