Learning through video: online diabetes education programme

Online diabetes education programme

Why?

The Healthy Lifestyles team at Torbay and South Devon NHS Foundation Trust identified that by utilising video, digital technology and automation it would help them to scale services, reach a wider audience and offer flexible access to their programmes.  This is importantly, very much in line with the recent findings by the National Institute of Health Research that Diabetes self management education leads to better blood sugar control. The Healthy Living with Type 2 Diabetes Education Programme, which currently runs group education sessions for people recently diagnosed, was chosen to trial the concept of converting a face-to-face programme to a digital medium with adipex adderall. Analysis of the attendance figures for the group education programme showed that the older generation, especially those over retirement age, were more likely to attend, but below retirement age (possibly due to the timing of the clinics being during working hours) attendance rates reduced dramatically.
Decade of birth Age group % of Overall Population Booked Attended % Attendance
1920s 90s 2.50% 22 20 91%
1930s 80s 20% 175 170 97%
1940s 70s 33.50% 292 288 99%
1950s 60s 19.50% 164 40 24%
1960s 50s 16.40% 143 25 17%
1970s 40s 6.50% 57 6 11%
The channel-shift towards an online offer aims to engage people through a different form of learning, reduce non-completion, offer flexible access including the ability to cover key learning points again, and appeal to younger service users.

How?

The Healthy Living with Type 2 Diabetes programme currently contains 8 hours of training; Healthy Lifestyles wanted to distil the essence and key learning of the programme and deliver this through the video series. It was also important that an efficient digital infrastructure was set up to deliver the videos – Patient’s Know Best was adopted as the main platform. This platform has been further developed with Healthy Lifestyles to capture entry and exit data, deliver the video programme, and offer online support to patients. The trial will initially offer the online video programme to patients who have declined the group offer, and also as a patient-led option for new referrals.  The videos will be used in the group education sessions, and links will be shared so patients can access the content afterwards. Non-attendees will also be sent email links and can watch the videos at a time convenient to them.

What?

In total 10 videos were produced for the Healthy Lifestyles team, covering possible complications with diabetes, healthy eating, coping with a hypo, importance of physical activity, what health checks do you need, giving an insulin injection, looking after your feet, and getting your eyes checked.  View some of the series here.  

Evaluation

Process evaluation, outcome measures and feedback mechanisms will help determine the efficacy and preferred mode of delivery, whether that be the group education clinics, watching the videos or a combination of both. The outcomes will also determine the possibility of rolling out similar initiatives across all services including stopping smoking, losing weight and increasing physical activity.  Healthy Lifestyles will also be conducting a Vox Pop poll with clinicians and patients to find out their views on the proposed new system.

Feedback

Working with Health and Care Videos has been an absolute pleasure. Richard was not only accommodating and receptive, he offered brilliant insight, guidance and creativity to the process.  Scripting was coordinated swiftly and professionally and high quality videos were produced rapidly.  We’ve been so impressed with the product and the process that we are now adopting video elsewhere within Healthy Lifestyles‘.  Timothy Spring, Fitness & Weight Management Development Lead, Torbay and South Devon NHS Foundation Trust

What you can do – diabetes self care videos

If you’re interested in finding out more about using videos to help educate and reduce the risk of diabetes click here and view the full series of 16 self care videos that we have produced.