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QIS2012 - QISMET's universal standard published

QIS2012 - The Standard for Health Management Programmes and Interventions is the new Standard developed by QISMET which will be universally applicable and therefore offers providers of newer programmes the opportunity to apply for certification

QISMET to receive share of £6.8 million to benefit patients

QISMET is to get up to £335,000 to test and develop innovative approaches to improve health and wellbeing, Care Services Minister Paul Burstow announced.

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The NICE Diabetes Standard

The NICE Standard for the treatment of Diabetes in adults was published in March 2011.

The very first quality statement in the Standard is:

 ‘People with diabetes and/or their carers receive a structured educational programme that fulfils the nationally agreed criteria from the time of diagnosis, with annual review and access to on-going education.’

QISMET has taken this high level statement and developed a usable 'tool' which, when applied via the auditing process, shows how providers measure up to this NICE quality statement. This 'tool' is the Diabetes Self Management Education (DSME) Standard. The two corner-stone documents the DSME Standard has been developed upon are:

‘Structured Patient Education in Diabetes – Report from the Patient Education Working Group’

‘How to Assess Structured Diabetes Education: An improvement toolkit for commissioners and local diabetes communities’

These are the documents which NICE recognises as giving ‘best practice’ for providing structured patient education programmes. They detail the 'nationally agreed criteria' for diabetes education programmes which NICE refers to in the quality statement above.

Therefore, requiring providers of diabetes self management education to be certificated against the DSME Standard in the commissioning contract is key for the following reasons:

Commissioners

• It provides commissioners with a ready-made 'tool,' which at a glance and at no cost to themselves, enables them to identify providers who have been independently audited and verified on the quality of their diabetes self management education provision, a significant benefit in the new landscape of 'any qualified provider.'

• As the DSME Standard is based upon the two cornerstone documents cited by NICE as giving 'best practice' it also enables commissioners to meet their responsibility in the NICE Quality Standard ‘to ensure they commission structured educational programmes that fulfil nationally agreed criteria.'

Providers

• QISMET certification via the DSME Standard enables providers to demonstrate that they are serious about the quality of their diabetes education provision.

• By benchmarking their service against the agreed DSME Standard, diabetes education providers are showing commissioners and potential participants that they are confident about the quality of their service and are happy to have this externally audited by an independent organisation (QISMET).

• QISMET certification via the DSME Standard also enables providers to demonstrate that they meet the requirement in the NICE Standard to ensure that ‘staff are enabled to offer structured educational programmes that fulfil nationally agreed criteria and are on going and accessible to all people with diabetes and/or their carers,’ as there are specific requirements in the DSME Standard which relate to these issues.

All of which will mean that people who attend diabetes education programmes can be reassured that they are receiving a good service.