Red X iconGreen tick iconYellow tick icon
Monday 5 December 2016 4:03pm

HBDHB-awards-image
Otago's Kirsten Coppell (fourth from left) at the Hawke's Bay District Health Board health awards with (from left) Mike Toogood (Skyline Aviation), Nicola Enau (Health Hawke's Bay), Wayne Woolrich (Health Hawke's Bay), Mark Aspden (Sport Hawke's Bay), Terrie Spedding (Health Hawke's Bay), Deborah Baird (Health Hawke's Bay), Sally Abel, Lillian Ward (Health Hawke's Bay), Jane Denby (Sport Hawke's Bay), Amanda MacInnes (Sport Hawke's Bay), Heather Johnson (Health Hawke's Bay) and Louise Pattison (Health Hawke's Bay).

A novel Otago-led prediabetes pilot project has won an Excellence in Innovation award at the recent Hawke's Bay District Health Board Health Awards.

The PIPI (prediabetes intervention package in primary care) project aims to prevent the progression of prediabetes through a primary care based programme of wellness that raises community awareness and encourages and supports people to make healthy lifestyle choices.

The project is being led by Otago's Edgar Diabetes and Obesity Research Centre in partnership with Health Hawke's Bay and Sport Hawke's Bay and has seen the development, implementation and evaluation of a structured nutrition programme to prevent the progression of prediabetes to type 2 diabetes.

The PIPI Study was based around identifying those at risk, encouraging weight loss and offering continued support to these people in order to prevent diabetes, its complications and associated costs.

Practice nurses attended a six-hour intensive training course on nutritional management of prediabetes and were given a host of resources to support their work during the pilot.

"The award is the culmination of a great collaborative team effort, particularly the dedication of the practice nurses, who capably implemented the intervention within busy primary care practices."

Recently diagnosed prediabetes patients were offered dedicated time with their practice nurse, who provided structured nutritional advice for the management of prediabetes so that they were empowered and able to make sensible dietary choices. The intervention was implemented at four sites in Napier and the outcome was compared with four control sites delivering 'usual care' in Hastings. Comparisons between the intervention group and control group saw the intervention group lose more weight.

With 26 percent of New Zealanders aged 15 years and over categorised as having prediabetes, and the national annual expenditure costs of diabetic medicines and monitoring estimated at over $66 million, the PIPI project is hugely worthwhile.

Hawke's Bay District Health Board holds its awards annually to recognise excellence in health initiatives, collaboration, innovation and the efforts made in health to reduce inequity in the community. The awards are highly regarded and sought after, with over 50 entries into the seven categories this year.

The Innovation award recognises initiatives which have significantly changed the way the DHB works with patients, their whanau, within their teams and with others.

Lead researcher, Senior Research Fellow at the Edgar Diabetes and Obesity Research Centre, Dr Kirsten Coppell says receiving the award was “great news” as with quite a few entries in the same category they were not sure if they would win.

“The award is the culmination of a great collaborative team effort, particularly the dedication of the practice nurses, who capably implemented the intervention within busy primary care practices. The best reward was hearing about the positive impact on the health of participants and their whanau.”

The PIPI Study was made possible with funding from the Ministry of Health, the Hawke's Bay Medical Research Foundation and the NZ Society for the Study of Diabetes.

Thanks to an HRC project grant the study now will seek to determine why some participants achieved normal blood glucose levels and others did not.

Back to top