Diabetes affects many daily decisions, including what to eat, how to exercise, when to test blood sugar, and when to take your prescribed medications. Diabetes self-management training and medical nutrition-therapy can help to take the mystery out of caring for your diabetes. Our healthcare professionals provide helpful advice and ongoing support.
How Diabetes Education Can Help
Whether you have recently been diagnosed with diabetes, or have had diabetes for many years, the Portneuf Diabetes Education team offers personalized diabetes education along with lifestyle education to promote health. They too have a toolkit with information on how to prevent and/or significantly delay diabetes related complications. If you have been diagnosed with diabetes, new and ongoing education allows you to take advantage of the latest diabetes technologies and proactively manage your diabetes.
The Diabetes Education and Nutrition Services Clinic at Portneuf Medical Center
Our outpatient diabetes education program meets the national standards for diabetes self-management education and has received a Certificate of Recognition from the American Diabetes Association. Our program is staffed with staff includes certified diabetes care and education specialists, registered nurses, and registered dietitians who specialize in educating people with diabetes about their condition. We offer a wide variety of services to fit your needs and interests, including two separate but complementary services: diabetes self-management training and medical nutrition therapy.
Diabetes Self-Management Training
Diabetes Self-Management Training (DSMT), provides an opportunity for individual instruction where patients:
- Meet one-on-one with a diabetes educator
- Develop a diabetes treatment plan based on assessment of specific diabetes care needs, including meal planning, physical activity, medication management, blood sugar testing, and weight management
- Set and plan to reach meaningful goals
Comprehensive education includes:
- Meal planning
- Strategies for adding physical activity
- Current medication therapies
- Adjusting meal plans and medications based on blood sugar testing
- Skills to prevent and/or delay the onset of diabetes-related complications
- Coping strategies for meeting the day-to-day challenges of having diabetes
- New diabetes technologies and innovations
Medical Nutrition Therapy
- Meet one-on-one with a registered dietitian trained in diabetes care
- Develop advanced meal-planning skills
- Create a personalized meal plan
- Learn how your insulin plan coordinates with your meal plan based on pre-meal blood sugar results and grams of carbohydrate to be eaten
Individual Instruction
A provider may refer you for individual instruction:
- Meal plan and medication adjustments using continuous glucose monitoring results
- Ongoing support for insulin pump therapy
- Review and adjust diabetes treatment plan when disabilities or diabetes-related complications make diabetes care management more complex.
To be referred to Portneuf Medical Center Diabetes Education and Nutrition Services Clinic, work with your provider Upon referral, our educators work closely with healthcare providers to develop personal diabetes treatment plan
For more information about the Diabetes Education and Nutrition Services Clinic call 208-239-2070