DAFNE Collaborative 2010

The DAFNE Collaborative for 2010 took place on Friday 11th June at the Midland Hotel in Manchester. The event was attended by DAFNE Educators from around the UK, Ireland and Australia, as well as other stakeholders from Diabetes UK, the DAFNE User Action Group (DUAG) and DAFNE Online. This event is aimed at updating the DAFNE community on new research and DAFNE guidelines.

The day began with a welcome from Professor Stephanie Amiel, who chairs the DAFNE Executive. She informed us that DAFNE was celebrating it’s 10th birthday this year, and that it has gone from strength to strength, with over 16,000 people having taken the course since it’s inception. Another notable fact was the number of countries following the DAFNE programme, with those countries being the UK, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, Germany, Spain, South Africa, Nigeria and Kuwait.

Stephanie then handed over to Peter Rogers from the DAFNE User Action Group (DUAG) and myself (Simon Fisher) from DAFNE Online. Peter kicked off the presentation by informing delegates of the formation and purpose of the DUAG, and then went on to discuss in detail the four streams of work that the group is concentrating on in the future, these being the Liaison, Awareness, Lobbying and Involvement groups. Simon then went on to discuss DAFNE Online, including its aims, features and benefits to DAFNE users. After this Peter wrapped up the presentation, inviting attendees to discuss amongst themselves a set of questions related to the presentation that they had just seen. These questions and answers will be detailed here when DAFNE Central has collated them. In the final part of this session, delegates were invited to ask questions of the two speakers. The majority of these questions came in the form of enhancement requests for DAFNE Online, and these are summarised below:

• DAFNE Online agreed to produce a Video and DVD to give to HCP’s and post online by way of an introduction to the site, so that educators who aren’t comfortable with IT are able to showcase the site to their Graduates.
• An enhancement to the Online Diary so that users can specify whether the BG entries are colour coded according to target, as some users may not want to see this information.
• When users receive a message online, they would like to be emailed about this.
• We may look to hosting questionnaires for the various DAFNE Centres around follow-up reviews, with the aim of increasing user response.

Feedback from this presentation was very positive, and a great number of delegates were enthusiastic about the DUAG and DAFNE Online.

Following this presentation, Dr. Ian Lawrence presented research on a comparison of different basal insulins. This research focused on insulin usage and HBA1C both during the DAFNE Course and 1 year on, comparing this data for three main types of basal insulin. The results from this research will be published to the DAFNE UK site shortly.

After Ian’s presentation there followed a coffee break, where DAFNE Online had a table and presentation running in the coffee area. We were inundated with visitors to the DAFNE Online table, with around 15 delegates signing up to the site during and after the break, some from DAFNE centres that previously had no educator coverage on the site. A number of delegates were also interested in viewing a preview of the DAFNE Online iPhone app, which Simon had on his iPhone. Again, feedback on this was very positive.

There then followed more presentations on recent research in Type 1 and DAFNE, but due to the overwhelming number of visitors to the DAFNE Online table, I missed out on these. The slides/content from these will shortly be posted on the DAFNE UK site for those who are interested.

After a delicious buffet lunch, the afternoon sessions commenced. These were a number of workshops around different topics related to DAFNE. Again, as I could only attend one of these, the information/results of the other sessions can be found on the DAFNE UK site.

The workshop that I attended was focused on uncovering the issues involved in setting up a Type 1 Diabetes service based on DAFNE, and was imaginatively titled “Commissioning for Type 1 Diabetes: an intergalactic extravaganza”. The aim of the session was to document to the ruler of a newly discovered planet (ENFAD) the requirements for a Type 1 diabetes service, focusing on five key phases: diagnosis, first year after diagnosis, the DAFNE course, first year after DAFNE and ongoing care and each section was further subdivided into glucose and non-glucose considerations.

Participants were invited to discuss and compose a list of standards that each patient would get in each of the five phases, given unlimited resources. Common themes were: 24/7 access to DAFNE-trained educators, consistent care wherever you were in the country, as well as many others. We than had to decide where and how these services were going to be delivered, and it was decided that the key people in the management of Glucose-related issues would be the Diabetic Specialist Nurses, supported by Specialist Dieticians and Doctors, whereas the Non-Glucose related issues (foot screening for example) would take place in Primary Care.

The aim of the session was to give attendees an insight into the difficulties and challenges in setting up a Type 1 Diabetes service based on DAFNE, and as it turned out there is a lot to think and work with which isn’t always apparent to the DAFNE Graduate.

After a wrap-up and review of the workshops, the day was over. It was very enjoyable to meet and network with a wide variety of DAFNE stakeholders. Furthermore, it was great to hear all of the positive feedback and suggestions for new things to do with DAFNE Online, and I’m grateful to DAFNE Central for inviting us along.