Total charges for these visits exceeded $1.2 billion.
*2002-2007 data

The Coalition announces the launch of the Camden Citywide Diabetes Collaborative, a five-year citywide initiative to dramatically improve the coordination of services and care for Camden residents with diabetes.  Supported by the Merck Company Foundation's Alliance to Reduce Disparities in Diabetes, this project will transform diabetes care at the patient, practice, and system levels.

Read more:   Initiative to Target Camden Diabetics
                     Courier Post; May 18, 2009

The Goals:

Improve the capacity of community-based, primary care practices to provide comprehensive, proactive care to their patients with diabetes

•   Help convert ten community-based, primary care practices in Camden as certified Patient   
     Centered Medical Homes
•   Assist practices in capacity building projects, including electronic health records, a diabetes 
     registry, physician/staff education, and referrals to patient nutrition and diabetes education
•   Utilize staff endocrinologist to conduct peer-to-peer education on diabetes care topics to
     primary care providers via webinar, on-site education, e-mail/phone consults, and group
     didactic sessions

Support improved diabetes self-management for the residents of Camden

•   Produce culturally-oriented diabetes self-management education programs throughout the city
•   Increase access to diabetes education in each neighborhood of Camden
•   Widely expand bilingual (English/Spanish) diabetes education
•   Create and distribute audio and video patient education materials to diabetic patients and  
     families
•   Support a working group of Camden diabetes educators to collaborate and create standards
     of education for city residents

Increase the capacity of medical day programs to care for their patients with diabetes

•   Provide staff education sessions; implement diabetes registries at centers
•   Standardize diabetes care; create standard order sets for use by primary care providers who
     interact with medical day programs

Improve coordination of care for people living with diabetes across the city of Camden

•   Develop standard outpatient, emergency department and hospital order sets for the
     management of patients with diabetes
•   Work with information technology collaborators to develop a citywide diabetes patient registry
     and other tools of health information exchange