Cooking for Your Sweetheart with Diabetes

On the evening of February 7, 2012, the Coalition hosted its Cooking for your Sweetheart with Diabetes at L’Ecole Culinaire Academy. The entertaining and informative chef delivered a great interactive presentation with hands-on demonstrations and sampling of ratatouille, crepes and quinoa chili chicken…. three dishes that we found to be absolutely mouthwatering… and good choices for people with diabetes.  Given the success of this program, plans are underway to deliver more hands-on programs centered on food in the future.  The Coalition welcomes ideas and partners to help further develop this mini-cooking school concept.  Like all Coalition program, participants were informed about ways to increase their diabetes self-management skills through services like Kick Diabetes.

Community Health Needs Assessment Underway…. Be Part of the Conversation

The Midwest Health Initiative seeks your input on how to improve the health of our community. To go directly a brief questionnaire, please click here.

To first learn more about the Midwest Health Initiative and this effort, please read below. The Midwest Health Initiative (MHI) is a non-profit organization that brings together patients, physicians, employers, hospitals, insurers and other community leaders to improve health and health care across the St. Louis region. Established in 2009, MHI believes in the power of information and collaboration. In addition to hosting a common table for regional leaders, MHI manages a community data warehouse that includes medical and pharmacy claims from 2 million people across the St. Louis region and Mid-Missouri. In July, MHI will convene business, health care and other community leaders from across the region for a half-day Live Well STL Summit. Attendees will determine one disease or condition to serve as the initial focus for Live Well STL, an ongoing, regional, collaborative health improvement effort led by MHI. The unifying purpose of Live Well STL is to bring together a wide breadth of talent and resources to demonstrate substantial improvement for one health condition. While there are many health improvement opportunities, MHI seeks success in one area to lay a foundation for broader gains in the future. As a health care leader, MHI asks for your guidance, collaboration and support in creating dialogue around the priority and how it should be addressed. As a first step, MHI invites you to complete this brief questionnaire. Please click here to fill out the questionnaire. It should take approximately 10 minutes to complete. Responses are requested by June 10th. The results will be presented at the Summit to guide attendee discussion and consensus development. Those who complete the questionnaire will be entered into a drawing to win one of five $50 gift cards. For more information on the Midwest Health Initiative or this process, please visit www.midwesthealthinitiative.org or contact Mary Jo Condon at mjcondon@stlbhc.org.

Diabetes Network of St. Louis to be Presented at ADA Scientific Meetings in San Diego

The collaboration known as the Diabetes Network of St. Louis will be shared with a national audience as an oral presentation at the upcoming ADA scientific meetings in San Diego in June.  The abstract Impact of a Lay-Led Diabetes Self Management Program in Community Settings was authored by Michael Elliott PhD, Coco Bopp, Eric Armbrecht PhD and Garry S. Tobin MD.

True Story on Sugar Substitutes at St. Anthony’s Medical Center

St. Anthony’s Medical Center will offer a free presentation, “How Sweet It Is! The True Story on Sugar Substitutes,” as part of its TalkDiabetes support program.

Elizabeth Patton, a registered licensed dietitian and certified diabetes educator, and Kathy Haarmann, a certified diabetes educator, will discuss the safety of sugar substitutes and their relation to weight management and blood sugars. Cooking tips and product taste tests also will be offered.

The presentation is scheduled for 1 to 2:30 p.m. Thursday, March 17, in the conference room of Hyland Education and Training Center, 10020 Kennerly Road.

For more information about the support group, call 314-525-4508. To register to attend, call 314-268-4669 or 1-800-554-9550.

Our Big Event is Back…

Save the date: Sat, May 14, 2011.  The third So What Can I Eat? community education will be held then at the Chase Park Plaza.  The last event drew 300+ people… Exhibitor opportunities are available.  Details are available at www.SoWhatCanIEat.com.

Thursday Feb 10: You are Invited to the Coalition Member Meeting and Volunteer Appreciation Dinner

It’s not black tie and it’s not a fundraiser, but this is the diabetes event to attend in 2011.  Be there.  People may be wondering where you are if you are not at there.  Register now. Space is limited.

So mark your calendar: Thursday, February 10, 5:00 PM, Saint Louis University’s Il Monastero Conference Center, a newly renovated facility located at 3050 Olive Street (St L MO 63103) about one block east of campus.

The dinner program beginning at 6:15 PM will honor community volunteers who worked on the Diabetes Network of St Louis project and feature a presentation by Drs. Mike Elliott and Garry Tobin about its results.  New and exciting initiatives for 2011 will also be announced as well. There are many ways to get involved now.

The dinner program portion of the meeting, which begins at 6:15 PM, is a ticketed event. $40.  Credit card payments are accepted online.  There is no charge to community members who want to attend the reception only (5:00 – 6:15 PM), but registration is still required.

Coalition member meetings are designed for professionals working in medical and public health fields related to diabetes to meet one another and learn about the happenings of St. Louis Diabetes Coalition as well as other efforts in the region to improve diabetes awareness, education and quality of care.

Post Dispatch Reports: Diabetes prevention moves out of the doctor’s office

Today, readers of the St. Louis Post Dispatch learned about local and national efforts to improve diabetes prevention and management.  An excellent story by Michele Munz describes an initiative underway at Shop N Save to help patients with diabetes learn about food and support them in sticking with medication regimens too.  Kudos to Shop N Save!

The St. Louis Diabetes Coalition was recognized in the article for its new program that provides one-on-one diabetes education services to people in community settings, like coffee shops, churches.  You can learn more about this program firsthand at the upcoming member meeting on Feb 10.

In the PD article, Dr. Eric Armbrecht (Saint Louis University Center for Outcomes Research professor and the Coalition’s Acting Executive Director) was quoted in the story… “People need encouragement, and where do you go for encouragement and support for things going on your life?” he said. “It’s not your doctor’s office or your hospital.” Read the full article now.

Diabetes Workshops Get 2011 “Off to a Good Start”

The St. Louis Diabetes Coalition is launching a series of community workshops called Off to a Good Start 2011 for people with diabetes or pre-diabetes.  The first workshop (Exercise is Medicine) in the series of six with different topics will take place on Sat, Jan 15.  Others are scheduled for through February.  All events are free and open to the public. Events are spread across the region –  central, north, and south.  Registration required. Click here for the ad featuring the first 3 events.  Some support for these programs comes from a grant from the St. Louis Regional Health Commission’s Community-University Health Research Partnership.

CHIPS Hosts 20th Anniversary

Coalition partner Community Health-In-Partnership is hosting is 20th Anniversary gala this weekend (November 20th).  The Coalition invites its members to consider attending or making a charitable contribution  to support their work for uninsured patients with diabetes. Click here to view the invitation or donate to CHIPS.

SLU Public Relations Helps Raise Awareness of Coalition’s Work

The public relations staff at Saint Louis University were great partners in spreading the word about the Nov 13 SoWhatCanIEat? event.  Working as a promotional partner, SLU developed a news release for local media outlets.  Tracking media coverage can be difficult, but we are aware that the St. Louis Beacon distributed the event information to their readers.