MUSC and UNC-Chapel Hill Test Diabetes Outreach Program

MUSC and UNC-Chapel Hill join forces to test a diabetes outreach program, facilitated by iPad technology, to reduce hospital readmission for patients in rural Bamberg County.

Charleston, S.C. — South Carolina Clinical & Translational Research (SCTR) Institute at the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) and the North Carolina Translational and Clinical Sciences (NC TraCS) Institute at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill are partnering to decrease diabetes prevalence and complications in Bamberg County, SC. The Bamberg Diabetes Transitional Care Study will utilize cutting-edge iPad technology to explore the impact and feasibility of different diabetes interventions for patients transitioning from the hospital to home.

Diabetes is the seventh leading cause of death in South Carolina, and nearly 15 percent of residents of Bamberg County have the disease (a rate over 1.5 times the national average). The county’s rural nature, which restricts access to medical care, nutrition counseling and self-management training for chronic illness also makes it an ideal intervention setting for this initiative. MUSC and UNC-CH will partner with the Bamberg County Diabetes Coalition, the Regional Medical Center of Orangeburg and Calhoun Counties (RMC) and the South Carolina Department of Health and Human Services (SC DHHS). Voorhees College has served as the local host for the project. Principal Investigators Dr. Sam Cykert from UNC-CH and Dr. Carolyn Jenkins of MUSC both have decades of experience working with communities to improve care and health outcomes.

“This collaborative effort is unique, rather than limiting patients to short clinic visits, we are combining community health workers and tech to address access issues in rural health within the community,” explained Dr. Sam Cykert. Both MUSC and UNC-CH are home to an NIH Clinical and Translational Science Awards (CTSA) Program. The CTSA program is a consortium of over 60 academic medical institutions across the country led by NIH’s National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS), to accelerate clinical and translational research from health science to discovery to dissemination to patients and communities. It seeks to overcome barriers to translation by improving efficiency, training the research workforce, and sharing successful research methods.

The three month research study will investigate which of the following three approaches to diabetes management is most effective: 1) bringing in community health workers to aid high-risk patients in managing their care, 2) follow up phone calls by nurses to patients, or 3) standard physician instructions alone. The overarching goal of the initiative is to establish a cost effective and best practice diabetes-management model in Bamberg County that could be disseminated across the United States. The model could ultimately reduce unnecessary hospital readmissions and improve self-care for this high-risk population.

About the SCTR Institute

The South Carolina Clinical & Translational Research Institute (SCTR) of the Medical University of South Carolina is the catalyst for changing the culture of biomedical research, facilitating sharing of resources and expertise, and streamlining research-related processes to bring about large-scale change in the clinical and translational research efforts in South Carolina. The SCTR Institute was established in 2006 in response to the National Institute of Health’s Clinical and Translational Science Award Program, funded by the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NIH/NCATS Grant UL1TR000062). For more information, visit sctr.musc.edu.

About MUSC

Founded in 1824 in Charleston, the Medical University of South Carolina is the oldest medical school in the South. Today, MUSC continues the tradition of excellence in education, research, and patient care. MUSC educates and trains more than 3,000 students and residents, and has nearly 13,000 employees, including approximately 1,500 faculty members. As the largest non-federal employer in Charleston, the university and its affiliates have collective annual budgets in excess of $1.7 billion. MUSC operates a 750-bed medical center, which includes a nationally recognized Children's Hospital, the Ashley River Tower (cardiovascular, digestive disease, and surgical oncology), and a leading Institute of Psychiatry. For more information on academic information or clinical services, visit musc.edu.

About the NC TraCS Institute

The North Carolina Translational and Clinical Sciences (NC TraCS) Institute, combines the research strengths, resources and opportunities of UNC, partner institution RTI International (RTI) and planning partner North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University (N.C. A&T). The mission of NC TraCS is to accelerate clinical and translational research from health science to discovery to dissemination to patients and communities. It seeks to overcome barriers to translation by improving efficiency, training the research workforce and sharing successful research methods. As the integrated home of the Clinical and Translational Science Awards (CTSA) program at UNC-CH, NC TraCS is supported through the National Institutes of Health (NIH), grant UL1TR001111. The CTSA program is led by the NIH’s National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS).