Carpe-DM

e present CARPE-DM, a Community Augmented Response to Patient Experience in Diabetes Mellitus. It is a comprehensive strategy that explores new ways to improve the early experiences of people living with Type 2 diabetes. 

CARPE-DM is a creative approach which centres on the deployment of a large network of community volunteers to help patients newly diagnosed with diabetes to optimise their self-care behaviours. Its unique digital ecosystem will thereby improve adherence to medications and management plans that will facilitate positive lifestyle adjustments. It is a scalable solution that will help to address the significant clinical challenges presented by a large and increasing patient cohort, often with complex individual needs.

CARPE-DM provides a program which explores patient’s unmet needs, identifies barriers to optimal care, and helps patients to overcome them. The program has four pillars: diet planning, exercise planning, blood glucose monitoring, and social support. It emphasises self-care by acting on four levers: increasing health literacy, motivating self-management, enhancing self-efficacy and optimising social support

In this way, CARPE-DM can transform the journey from diagnosis to effective self-care behaviours for patients with type 2 diabetes. Ultimately, it will drive adherence to medication and to positive lifestyle changes by leveraging new technologies and delivering them through encouraging human interaction.

Successful diabetes self-management requires that individuals with diabetes frequently monitor their blood glucose levels and take a number of important actions in order to keep it within a physiological level. This in turn aims to reduce the risks of diabetic complications and improve the patient’s quality of life. Self-management is a continuously developing process and complete concordance with a clinician’s management plan will not be achieved by a majority of patients.

Recent advancements in healthcare delivery technologies such as smartphone applications, telemedicine, m-health, device connectivity, machine-learning technology, and AI provide a significant opportunity to achieve more efficient care and increase patient involvement in diabetes self-management. However, recent advancements without a personalised and human perspective have not demonstrated sustained benefit. CARPE-DM can address this problem by linking patients and systems through its network of CVs. This network will comprise highly motivated volunteers who will themselves benefit from their voluntary work. This network can mitigate the shortages of clinicians to care for a growing cohort of patients with diabetes.

An holistic approach to the care of the control of diabetes has been shown to be very important. CARPE-DM aims to increase adherence, reduce complications and improve quality of life by acting on four levers: increasing health literacy, motivating self-management, enhancing self-efficacy and optimising social support. In these ways, CARPE-DM helps patients to optimise their self-care.