Australian National Diabetes Strategy 2016-20

The Australian National Diabetes Strategy 2016-20 aims to address the growing problem of diabetes in Australia. This article discusses the policy background, evidence, implementation, monitoring and evaluation, stakeholder engagement, and strengths and shortfalls of the strategy.

Running head: AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL DIABETES STRATEGY 2016-20
Australian National Diabetes Strategy 2016-20
Course Name and Number
Name of the coordinator
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Author Note

1AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL DIABETES STRATEGY 2016-20
Policy Background
Diabetes is one of the major reason of overall disease burden of Australia and
government of Australia is very serious to address this problem in the country. The
Australian national diabetes strategy 2016-20 is one of the opportunities to consider the
current situation of the diabetes in Australia. In addition to this, the Australian national
diabetes strategy 2016-20 also help the government to address the role of government and
the stakeholders and simultaneously helps in the improvement of the existing this policy. In
recent past, it is reported that, the diabetes prevalence is enhancing in Australia in a serious
rate. According to the report of Diabetes Australia, in 2016, there were almost 100,105
Australians who were suffering from diabetes and were registered to the Diabetes Scheme
newly. In addition to this, almost 1211251 Australians were previously registered in the
national diabetes scheme in the country. Among this total number of diabetes patients it was
reported that approximately 1,049,929 people were diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. On the
other hand, approximately 117,875 people were diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. In addition to
this, almost 36198 women were diagnosed with gastrointestinal diabetes in Australia within
the time period of 2015-16. Moreoever, the trend of diagnosis diabetes among the young
Australians is the most serious area of concern in the country. Although, government of
Australia, is trying to combat with this condition by using various strategies, still it has
become a serious problem for the Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islander people of the
country. The prevalence of this disease is much higher among the Indigenous and Torres
Strait Islander people than that of the non-indigenous Australians. According to the report of
Diabetes Australia published in 2016, it is reported that, any coordinated and comprehensive
plan has not been proposed to implement the Australian national diabetes strategy 2016-
20 in Australia. However, in a few states of the country, they are implementing a few plans
in their own initiatives.
Policy Evidence
Apart from a number of barriers in the way of policy, it can be said that, the
improvement in the diabetes prevention and diabetes care, a multi-sectorial response is
required and it is also evident that, without the help of government, it is not possible to
reduce the burden of the disease in Australia. Moreover, there are a few programs apart from
the Australian national diabetes strategy 2016-20 in Australia and government of Australia

2AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL DIABETES STRATEGY 2016-20
announced a few steps for reducing the burden of disease in the country. In 2016, government
had provided almost $33.8 million for next 4 years identifying the eye related problem among
the diabetes patients (Department of Health 2015). This initiative was mainly taken for the
people of rural areas and for Torres Strait Islander people. In the same year, the government
of Australia signed four contracts with the Diabetes Australia in order to continue the national
diabetes service scheme and it would provide adequate education, treatment to the diabetes
patients of diabetes in the country. For this initiative, government will provide $174 million
to Diabetes Australia (Diabetes Australia 2016). Along with this, the government also
introduced new limits, so that diabetes patient of the country can have access to all the
essential equipment to control diabetes in a low cost. A pharmacy diabetes scheme was also
planned by the government and this may help in the diabetes incidents which are
undiagnosed. For addressing the diabetes problem among the children and adolescents, it was
reported that, more amount of funding will be provided to give the glucose monitoring
system in a more subsidized rate to the children and adolescents of the country (Diabetes
Australia 2016).
Implementation
The implementation of this Australian national diabetes strategy 2016-20 is aiming
towards achieving a few goals. Primarily this strategy will try to strengthen the all segments
in forming, implementing and inspecting the coordinated response for decreasing the social,
economic and human impact of diabetes in Australia. In order to implement the this strategy
primarily 7 goals are identified that comprise of potential regions for action and area of
progress as well (Department of Health 2015). The strategy was formed by the help of e
Australian Health Ministers’ Advisory Council and the Council of Australian Governments
(COAG) Health Council. As a part of contract between the Government of Australia and
Diabetes Australia, the Australians were given new Medicare items and those were
distributed among the Torres Strait Islander people and people in remote locations. In
addition to this, for implementing this the AHMAC had formulated an intergovernmental
Implementation Working Group so that they can evaluate the progress of this Australian
national diabetes strategy 2016-20 (Diabetes Australia 2016). The government of
Queensland has introduced a 4 year program for managing diabetes and this will provide
almost $27 million for improving the health condi0tion of the diabetes patients of the
country. This program by Queensland Government will allow the risk assessment of the
diabetes patients and this may improve the condition as it will cause early detection of this

3AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL DIABETES STRATEGY 2016-20
disease. The policy implementation is focused towards the minimization of social, economic
and human burden of the disease (Department of Health 2015).
Monitoring and Evaluation
The process of monitoring and evaluation of the proposed plan is very crucial as it
will help the government to identify any flaws of this plan and simultaneously will help in
improvement of the proposed plan. For monitoring this process, a multi sectorial approach
will be required as the stakeholders of this plan belong from the diverse culture. For example,
it can be said that, while, this approach will be applied in case of Indigenous people of
Australia, the evaluator should have a different approach as the Indigenous people have
different cultural belief and practices (Department of Health 2015). This differentiation
should be identified and according to their cultures, the monitoring process should be directed
and it will help to improve their diabetes condition in a better way. In addition to this, there
should be proper coordination in regional services so that all the people even in remote
locations can have access to the primary care (Diabetes Australia 2016). In addition to this,
the government should evaluate the possible benefits of using the community pharmacies and
health care professionals who are engaged in the health education program to the patients
(Department of Health 2015). In addition to this, the use of the electronic health record
system should be monitored so that all the health care professionals can use it to provide
health services even in remote areas.
Stakeholder engagement
The primary stakeholders of this Australian national diabetes strategy 2016-20 are
the government of Australia and the diabetes patients of the country. The Torres Strait
Islander people are also another stakeholder who are engaged in this process. In addition this,
the health care providers, tele-health experts engaged in this process are the secondary
stakeholders of this Australian national diabetes strategy 2016-20 (Department of Health
2015).
Strengths and Shortfalls of the Policy
Australian national diabetes strategy 2016-20 is based on 7 goals and the main aim of
this strategy is to achieve these goals. The strengths and shortfalls of this strategy are buried
into these goals. The first goal of this strategy is to decrease the number of people having
diabetes type 2 in Australia. This program promote a healthy lifestyle approach among the

4AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL DIABETES STRATEGY 2016-20
community people and it will help to reduce the complications among all type of people and
it will simultaneously help in reducing the comorbidities. Moreover, this goal uses a
community based approach and it is the main strengths of this goal (Department of Health
2015). This community based approach will allow to address the problem of general
population, children and as well as the problem of adolescents (Diabetes Australia 2016).
These wide variety of population will be covered under this goal. In addition to this, the
educational program and social media campaign for promoting healthy lifestyle can also be
counted as a strengths of this goal as due to advancement of technology, the use of social
media has become very popular (Department of Health 2015). The use of modern technology
may improve the condition in a better way. This Australian national diabetes strategy 2016-
20 aims to detect the diabetes type 1 and type 2 in the early stage of the disease in the second
goal of their plan. This can be counted as another strengths of this diabetes plan as in various
studies, it is reported that, early detection diabetes will help in the improvement of health and
quality of life of the patients simultaneously. Under this second goal of this plan, the primary
focus is on the education of primary health care providers regarding the identification of the
early symptoms of the diabetes and also to educate the community people so that they can
identify the key symptoms of the disease and this will help in the self-management of this
disease by the community people itself (Chrvala, Sherr and Lipman 2016). According to the
study of Powers et al. (2017), self-management program is very effective in the management
of disease. In a study, it is reported that, the use of self-management program in case of
diabetes, there is a significant positive outcome in reducing the burden of disease in a
particular community (Kim et al. 2015). In case of managing the diabetes type 2, the use of
AUSDRISK is highly recommended in this diabetes management strategy. The AUSDRISK
is a screening tools for detecting diabetes and among all the age groups, the use of this tool is
promoted by the health care professionals (Aguiar et al. 2015). The use of reviewing
screening methods such as HbA1c in the screening algorithm procedure can also be counted
as another strengths of this diabetes strategy as in multiple studies it is reported that, the use
of HbA1c in the screening algorithm procedure is quite effective. Moreover, this strategy
plan includes the education of the health providers and this will also help them in detecting
the disease in the early phase (Taylor-Phillips et al. 2016). This early detection of diabetes
may improve the disease outcome in Australia.
Moreover, this diabetes strategy of Australia focuses on the improvement of quality
of life of the diabetes patients. In various studies, it is reported that, the among the diabetes

5AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL DIABETES STRATEGY 2016-20
patients, the quality of life is degraded and it is crucial to improve the quality of life among
the diabetes patients (Department of Health 2015). According to the study of Al Hayek et al.
(2014), it is observed that the diabetes patients face various problem in their daily life due to
the behaviour of the health care professionals and it should be addressed in a high priority
manner. As this strategy of Australia aims to improve the quality of life of the patients
suffering from diabetes, it can be said that, it is one of the strengths of this strategy plan.
Although, in few regions of the country, all the primary care services are well available, still
this condition is not uniformly distributed throughout the country (Department of Health
2015). A huge number of regions of this country does not have adequate health care services
and in many areas this barrier restricts people to access the primary care services and that
contributes to the decreased quality of life (Department of Health 2015). In various studies, it
is observed that, the restriction to the primary health care service can affect the quality of life
of the patients with chronic illness of the patients (Doocy et al. 2016). The use of electronic
health record system is another strength of this strategy as use of electronic health record
system will allow the health care providers to provide services to more number of patients
and that will reduce the incidents of diabetes in the country (Amante et al. 2014). According
to the report of Australian Government, it is reported that, the prevalence of diabetes is higher
among the Torres Strait Islander and in Aboriginals. This diabetes plan of Australia
specifically addresses the problem of those people and aims to reduce the impact diabetes
among the Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islander(Department of Health 2015). This
community specific goal of this strategy will help to reduce the disease burden among the
people and this community specific strategy will allow Aboriginal people to access health
care services as due to their lower socioeconomic status they are unable to access all the
services and this strategy will help them to address this problem ( Beck et al. 2018). In
addition to this, the Australian national diabetes strategy 2016-20 also addresses the
problems of the people with different cultures and language. It is reported that, the almost
30% of total Australian population were born overseas and in many cases it was observed
that, they have different cultures and language(Department of Health 2015). Under this
diabetes care plan the country is trying to reduce the overall disease burden of the country. In
addition to this, Australia is more concentrating on the improvement of this policies through
investing more in the researches and this can be counted as another strengths of this study
(Diabetes Australia 2016).

6AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL DIABETES STRATEGY 2016-20
Although there are multiple positive factors in this goal of national diabetes strategy,
there are a few flaws and that should be addressed. For example, it can be said that, there
should be continuous development plans for the community people and it will allow a
dynamic improvement of the plan (Department of Health 2015). In addition to this, it is
reported that, there are no different national diabetes prevention program for the Torres Strait
Islander people and this specific plan should include more effort to identify the disease in an
early stage of the disease. In various region of the country, it is reported that, number of
health care educator is not adequate and this can enhance the problem of diabetes patients in
remote areas and simultaneously, the Indigenous Australians are suffering from this shortage
of health educator staffs (Diabetes Australia 2016). This strategic plan fails to show any
alternative to overcome this problem and this should be addressed in a high-priority manner
as this may affect the quality of life of the patients by restricting them in having access of the
primary care services. This can be marked as a shortfalls of this strategy plan. For the diverse
cultural people, the translational service are recommended. However, as per the report, no
such translational services are promoted or implemented by the federal government
(Department of Health 2015).

7AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL DIABETES STRATEGY 2016-20
References
Aguiar, E.J., Morgan, P.J., Collins, C.E., Plotnikoff, R.C. and Callister, R., 2015.
Characteristics of men classified at high-risk for type 2 diabetes mellitus using the
AUSDRISK screening tool. Diabetes research and clinical practice, 108(1), pp.45-54.
Al Hayek, A.A., Robert, A.A., Al Saeed, A., Alzaid, A.A. and Al Sabaan, F.S., 2014. Factors
associated with health-related quality of life among Saudi patients with type 2 diabetes
mellitus: a cross-sectional survey. Diabetes & metabolism journal, 38(3), pp.220-229.
Amante, D.J., Hogan, T.P., Pagoto, S.L. and English, T.M., 2014. A systematic review of
electronic portal usage among patients with diabetes. Diabetes technology &
therapeutics, 16(11), pp.784-793.
Beck, J., Greenwood, D.A., Blanton, L., Bollinger, S.T., Butcher, M.K., Condon, J.E.,
Cypress, M., Faulkner, P., Fischl, A.H., Francis, T. and Kolb, L.E., 2018. 2017 National
standards for diabetes self-management education and support. The Diabetes
Educator, 44(1), pp.35-50.
Chrvala, C.A., Sherr, D. and Lipman, R.D., 2016. Diabetes self-management education for
adults with type 2 diabetes mellitus: a systematic review of the effect on glycemic
control. Patient education and counseling, 99(6), pp.926-943.
Department of Health, 2015. A Strategic Framework for Action Advice to Government on
the Development of the Australian National Diabetes Strategy 2016–2020. Government of
Australia. Retrieved from- https://static.diabetesaustralia.com.au/s/fileassets/diabetes-
australia/9cda1987-7e15-467c-96c8-53f1422ff7d9.pdf
Department of Health, 2015. Australian National Diabetes Strategy 2016–2020. Government
of Australia. Retrieved from-
http://www.health.gov.au/internet/main/publishing.nsf/content/3AF935DA210DA043CA257
EFB000D0C03/$File/Australian%20National%20Diabetes%20Strategy%202016-2020.pdf
Diabetes Australia, 2016. Diabetes – the “State of the Nation” Report. Diabetes Australia.
Retrieved from- https://static.diabetesaustralia.com.au/s/fileassets/diabetes-australia/
0e17949e-4ba7-4c6f-a251-3f020ed2d8e6.pdf

8AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL DIABETES STRATEGY 2016-20
Doocy, S., Lyles, E., Akhu-Zaheya, L., Oweis, A., Al Ward, N. and Burton, A., 2016. Health
service utilization among Syrian refugees with chronic health conditions in Jordan. PLoS
One, 11(4), p.e0150088.
Kim, M.T., Kim, K.B., Huh, B., Nguyen, T., Han, H.R., Bone, L.R. and Levine, D., 2015.
The effect of a community-based self-help intervention: Korean Americans with type 2
diabetes. American journal of preventive medicine, 49(5), pp.726-737.
Powers, M.A., Bardsley, J., Cypress, M., Duker, P., Funnell, M.M., Fischl, A.H., Maryniuk,
M.D., Siminerio, L. and Vivian, E., 2017. Diabetes self-management education and support
in type 2 diabetes: a joint position statement of the American Diabetes Association, the
American Association of Diabetes Educators, and the Academy of Nutrition and
Dietetics. The Diabetes Educator, 43(1), pp.40-53.
Taylor-Phillips, S., Mistry, H., Leslie, R., Todkill, D., Tsertsvadze, A., Connock, M. and
Clarke, A., 2016. Extending the diabetic retinopathy screening interval beyond 1 year:
systematic review. British Journal of Ophthalmology, 100(1), pp.105-114.

9AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL DIABETES STRATEGY 2016-20
Appendix 1
Policy
Background
Evidence Goals Strengths Weakness
Diabetes is one
of the major
reason of
overall disease
burden of
Australia and
government of
Australia is very
serious to
address this
problem in the
country. In
order to address
this problem a
strategic plan
named
Australian
national
diabetes
strategy 2016-
20 was
developed.
In 2016,
government had
provided almost
$33.8 million
for next 4 years
identifying the
eye related
problem among
the diabetes
patients. This
initiative was
mainly taken for
the people of
rural areas and
for Torres Strait
Islander people.
In the same
year, the
government of
Australia signed
four contracts
with the
Diabetes
Australia in
order to
continue the
national
diabetes service
scheme and it
would provide
There are 7
goals in this
diabetes plan.
The strengths
of this diabetes
plan is that, this
plan addressed
the needs of all
kinds of people
ranging from
normal
Australians to
Torres Strait
Islander people.
Although, this
community
based plan help
to address the
problems of all
kind of people,
still there is no
specific plan for
the Aboriginal
people of the
country and it is
required as they
are more
vulnerable to
have diabetes.

10AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL DIABETES STRATEGY 2016-20
adequate
education,
treatment to the
diabetes
patients of
diabetes in the
country. For
this initiative,
government will
provide $174
million to
Diabetes
Australia.