Benchmark Assignment: Evidence-Based Practice Project-Paper on Diabetes (2)

Benchmark Assignment: Evidence-Based Practice Project-Paper on Diabetes
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Diabetes is a chronic illness. It occurs due to the failure of pancreas to produce insulin or because of non-response of the body cells to insulin with symptoms characterized by frequent micturition and increased hunger and thirst. During its acute stages, it could cause ketoacidosis complications and nonketotic hyperosmolar coma with chronic symptoms being kidney malfunction, heart disease, and eye damage (Poretsky, 2010). Diabetes can be prevented or managed through proper exercise, healthy eating, and refraining from tobacco smoking. Maintaining one’s body weight and blood pressure are critical in checking the disease. Insulin injections are regularly administered to persons with type one diabetes while type two diabetes with oral medication.
About 382 million people around the globe suffer from diabetes as showed by a 2013 study with type 2 of the disease being more rampant. Diabetes was the 8th major cause of global death in 2011 claiming 1.4 million lives. It is projected that if the disease if not checked there will be 592 diabetics by 2035, hence the need to invent ways to prevent and manage the disease (Lizana & Santamera, 2007). While traditional management of the disease has been the regular injection of patients with insulin or the taking of foods with low carbohydrate content and proper exercise, new diagnostic interventions have cropped up that help the nurse in catering to the diabetics. Since the advent of technology, scientists are endeavoring to make it ubiquitous to help improve on people’s lives not-withstanding health wise.
For the case of the diabetic patient, constant monitoring by nurses has been augmented with the use of technologies such as mobile phone applications, pagers, and the internet (Goldstein, 2000). This is to ensure the management of patient’s blood sugar levels and remainders for diabetics to take their medicine. These interventions and diagnostic tools assist patient with self-management support from the hospital setting to the real world environment in congruence to the person’s age, culture and lifestyle. Unlike the traditional methods, these new tools and interventions are cost-effective, time productive, sustainable and are highly suitable for high-risk patients who would not manage regular visits to the medical facility.
Patients with pre-diabetic in the developing world have a high like hood of digressing to full diabetes while the diabetic ones are likely to deteriorate to poor health culminating to death. 70% of world diabetic cases originate from the middle and poor income countries that are due to the poor and scarce medical facilities that have poor integrative programs to prevent or manage a chronic condition. Innovating approaches to combat diabetes in such settings have been studied and employed, and their effectiveness assessed. Cell phones particularly whose use has sky –rocketed mostly in Africa, have been harnessed to provide this healthcare service to the patients with diabetes. Nurses are able to monitor their patients and provide them information through text messaging (Lizana & Santamera, 2007). This is particularly welcome in villages where the nearest hospital could be hundreds of kilometers away. Particul...