Evolution of the American Association of Diabetes Educators' diabetes education outcomes project

This is the initial article in a series that describes a multiyear project of a professional membership organization to define, standardize, collect, and report the outcomes of diabetes self-management education. The purpose of this article is to describe and summarize the contributions of each phase of the project: determining a conceptual framework, developing and testing measurement instruments, defining outcome standards for diabetes self-management education, and implementing a technology approach to capturing the outcomes.

Association archives, project participants, presentation slides, and published articles provide the historical information that is presented in this article.

Evidence for diabetes education as an intervention has been demonstrated, but key questions remain about what settings and which interventions, provided by whom and over what period of time, produce what outcomes. This project integrated diabetes education outcomes reporting into a system of diabetes care through the development of measurement methods and a data collection system for patients and educators at the point of service.

The AADE7 Outcomes System supports educators in collecting and reporting on program design, patient self-care behaviors, and educational, behavioral, and clinical interventions and outcomes.