[Holistic Person-Centered Care for Individuals With Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus]

In 2022, the American Diabetes Association and the European Association for the Study of Diabetes emphasized that type 2 diabetes care is a person-centered holistic care concept. This article summarizes the concepts of holistic care for individuals with type 2 diabetes and proposes a complete model of the six-layer whole-person care circle for individuals with type 2 diabetes. This model treats individuals with type 2 diabetes as the core of care and adopts their specific needs, preferences, and values to design individualized care plans. The overall goal of care is to maintain quality of life and to avoid or delay complications. Management methods must be holistic. Based on people and comprehensive considerations, six circles of care are listed. The first layer is caregivers, taking into account the influence of the family and the community on the individual. The second layer is multi-professional and multi-disciplinary team care, which provides support to individuals with diabetes. The third layer emphasizes the need for the following thirteen principles in diabetes care: monitoring and screening for complications, behavior modification for healthy habits, monitoring and continuous assessment, reducing the risk of hypoglycemia, effective implementation and care organization, considering underlying physiological conditions, avoiding therapeutic inertia, considering social determinants of health, psychological factors, structured diabetes education, language proficiency, shared decision-making, and considering regional healthcare institutions and related resources. The fourth layer is the decision cycle of care, which applies the principles of care and conducts continuous and dynamic case management based on the decision cycle. The fifth layer is the healthcare network through which health providers provide hospital, long-term care, and primary clinics/ primary network care referrals based on the needs of individual with diabetes. The sixth layer leverages the chronic care model to construct a supportive healthcare system comprising organizational support, clinical information systems, delivery system design, decision support, self-management support, and community resources. This proposed model may provide a reference for constructing healthcare systems to care for patients with type 2 diabetes.