Floyd Medical Center Wins Statewide Community Leadership Award
Floyd Medical Center earned a Community Leadership Award from the Georgia Hospital Association for its community outreach with a focus on diabetes prevention.
To address the prevalence of Type 2 diabetes in the community, Floyd Medical Center’s Diabetes Education and Corporate Health departments have joined together to offer dia-betes screenings to identify individuals at risk of developing Type 2 diabetes.
Those who meet the criteria for prediabetes are offered free participation in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Diabetes Prevention Program (DPP) at Floyd. The DPP program is a partnership of public and private organizations working to-gether to provide people with prediabetes affordable, lifestyle change programs to reduce their risk of Type 2 diabetes.
“We are only the second hospital in the state of Georgia to receive recognition by the CDC for our Diabetes Prevention Program,” said Sheila Bennett, Executive Vice Presi-dent and Chief of Patient Services at Floyd.
Floyd first offered the program to its employees and began its community outreach in the spring.
“We saw the need in our community to do something on the front end to discourage all of the complications that can happen with Type 2 diabetes. We recognized that if we can impact our people here at Floyd, then we can start getting the community acclimated into the benefits of this program,” said Traci Tillery, Director of Nursing Specialty Services.
Floyd also is working to prevent Type 2 diabetes through its participation in a Department of Public Health (DPH) pilot project, CATAPULT. The project has two goals: reduce hos-pitalizations for Type 2 diabetes by 25 percent and for high blood pressure by 10 percent by 2020.
To further promote diabetes education in the community, the hospital’s Diabetes Educa-tion department offers a series of outpatient classes. Recognized by the American Dia-betes Association, the classes provide diabetes self-management materials to ensure
that a person with diabetes can manage their disease. Floyd and the Floyd Healthcare Foundation also sponsor Kiki’s Kids Camp, a four-day summer camp for youth with Type 1 diabetes, as well as a diabetes support group in which members can discuss their is-sues and learn from each other.
To learn more about the Diabetes Prevention Program, call the Floyd Diabetes Education Department at 706.509.5184.
