SourceDHF Blog:http://diabeteshandsfoundation.org/dhf-joins-diabetes-advocacy-alliance/
Diabetes Hands Foundation is incredibly honored to join theDiabetes Advocacy Alliance, an organization with the drive and potential to affect a powerful, positive impact on diabetes and healthcare policy.
Diabetes Advocacy Alliance is a 20-member coalition of leading professional societies, nonprofit organizations, and policy change-makers from across the national diabetes landscape. Included among these voices are theAmerican Medical Association,Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics,National Kidney Foundation,YMCA,American Diabetes Association,Pediatric Endocrine Society, andNovo Nordisk, Inc. DHF is one of two newly appointed members, sharing that honor with another patient-centered partner, the digital health leaders atOmada Health.
Our mission at Diabetes Hands Foundation is to ensure that no one touched by diabetes feels alone, and that extends to makingour voices as patients heard by industry, regulators, payers, providers, and policymakers. With a seat at the Diabetes Advocacy Alliance table, DHF continuesto ensure that the voice of the patient isrepresented earnestly.
Diabetes Hands Foundations inclusion in this coalition represents a clear commitment on the part of the Alliance to include the patient voice in the stakeholder conversation. We promise that we will make every effort to reflect the efforts, struggles, fears, and needs of patients with diabetes through our participation in the Alliance so that the way diabetes is viewed and treated in America changes for the better.
To that end, Diabetes Hands Foundation has already joined several DAA efforts, including:
- Signed a letter supporting the National Diabetes Clinical Care Commission Act (reintroduced last week to the 114th Congress as HR 1192).This bill would establish a commission to evaluate and make recommendations regarding better coordination and leveraging of programs related to the care and treatment of people with pre-diabetes and diabetes within the Department of Health and Human Services and other federal agencies.
- Attended the first 2015 in-person meeting of the Diabetes Advocacy Alliance in Washington, D.C. There we discussed how to go beyond prevention and detection to embrace the care and treatment of people with preexisting diabetes in the Alliances 2015 legislative priorities.
- Assisting in the development of a one-pager on Patients with Diabetes Aging into Medicare for an upcoming Aging Summit produced by the Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion.
- Serving on thePatient Rights and Responsibilities committee for people living with diabetes and pre-diabetes.
The potential for patient-driven action in diabetes has never been greater. The opportunity to advocate is available to all of us, whether in the drafting and pursuit of policy or simply applying your own individual voices to the needs directly in front of you. We at Diabetes Hands Foundation will do our part to serve the needs of people touched with diabetes through our participation in this coalition of organizations to helpensure that no one with diabetes feels they are not represented in these important conversations.