30th September, 2018, Dr Chee L Khoo
One of the many challenges in general practice is keeping up with new management guidelines. Another week another guideline somewhere. Even if you are made aware of the existence of those guidelines and have access to them, the guidelines are usually 150-200 pages long. Even the executive summary runs into half a dozen pages. Of course, it changes at least every couple of years if not every year, as new information becomes available and new agents come to market. And often there are substantial practical changes in the new versions. How does one keep up with guidelines? Is there a trick to keeping up to date in an easy manner? Read on.
The impending new American Diabetes Association (ADA) guidelines this year will incorporate an assessment of cardiovascular risk, body weight and renal function when choosing the next agent. There are also recommendations to go with a GLP1 injectable first off before insulin therapy. There are also suggestions of how to up titrate these injectables as the disease progresses and we lose glycaemic control.
The RACGP guidelines being developed will no doubt incorporate some of those elements. Here at GPVoice, we not only keep you up to date with some of the relevant guidelines (including T2D), we also highlight the impending changes coming up.
Patients with T2D diabetes make up at least 30-50% of the average patient load in general practice. Each of those patients are unique. They are all at different stages of the disease, have different beta cell reserve and different levels of insulin resistance. Their glucose profiles are naturally, very different. They have different diets, different physical activity and have different level of physical fitness and body composition. Their response to different anti-diabetic agents will vary as well. Their different occupations and family support will also affect which agents with choose. And we have to match up all those differences between patients and within that same patient as he or she journey through their disease with the guidelines recommendations.
So, how do you keep up to date? We all know it takes years (16 years on average) from guidelines to clinical implementation. Are you one of those GPs who will wait that long? Do you wait till most of your patients come back from the endocrinologist or hospital with new agents before you change with the guidelines? Are you practising evidence based medicine in the true sense? Will your patient benefit from you being up to date with the latest?
DOMTRU in conjunction with GPVoice is proud to run the annual GP Diabetes Injectable Masterclass Workshop on 24th November 2018. This is a comprehensive workshop taking you through all of the above issues. It is a very hands-on workshop with cases after cases. There is minimal “lecture” style presentations. Our very experienced endocrinologists and GP facilitators will ensure the workshop is interactive and reflect current practice in general practice. It is truly a MASTERCLASS.
Wait! There are 2 vouchers worth $250 to win for attendees. The workshop is only limited to 40 GPs and a handful of allied health professionals. To register, click here.
To see the full program click here.