Labrador-Grenfell Health makes strides to treat diabetes, mental health

Labrador-Grenfell Health has made strides in diabetes care and boosted telehealth services, with those highlights and more detailed in itsrecently released annual report.

Diabetes is one of the health authority's "strategic issues," said Barbara Molgaard Blake, the vice-president of people and information, adding the chronic disease is "very prevalent in the region."

• Read full 2015-16 report here

To combat that, Blake said Labrador-Grenfell Health has beefed up the way it treats diabetes patients, standardizing forms and working towards creating a database to better service anyone affected.

"We felt it's importantthat we are able to identify where do we need to focus our services. For example, are there a higher number of diabetes clients in a certain community? Or what age are they? Are they male or female? And then we can tailor our services to target those clients," she told CBC Radio's Labrador Morning.

The health authority also filled a long-vacant position for a diabetes nurse-educator, and added another half-time position, both of which serve Happy Valley-Goose Bay as well as coastal communities.

Health care,just a phone call away

Some diabetes patients are getting help via telehealth, a method of health care delivery Labrador-Grenfell Health is continuing to focus on.

Blake said in the past year, 800 "visits" for mental health and addictions issues have been done over the phone, an increase of 34 per cent from the year before. Blake said using telehealth is crucial to delivering much-needed treatments like counselling over a challenging geographical area.

"In person is probably always preferable, but you can geta pretty comparable relationship with a client throughtelehealth," she said.

"Nowadays we're so used to using video and the Internet andtechnology, and a lot of our clients are quitecomfortable using that technology."

While telehealth is one way to spread a limited number of experts across a vast area, Blake said the health authority has also cracked down on people who repeatedly miss specialist appointments,managingto cut its no-show rates.

"We only have a certain number of professionals in our region, so the use of their time is very important to us. We were having a lot of no-shows," she said.

Areas of improvement

The annual report also sets out goals for the future. One of those is to continue addressing the recommendations made by the province's child and youth advocate in a report about the deaths of two children in Nain in a fatal house fire in 2010.

• Children killed in fire failed by government employees, RCMP: N.L. advocate

"That was certainly a very tragic event," said Blake, adding the health authority has an action plan in place to deal with it.

"Our part of it focuses primarily on the clinical practice of regional nurses," she said.

"What we've done is really enhanced their training and education as part of their orientationbefore they go to a community clinic on the coast."

The Labrador-Grenfell Health report said there will be further action taken in coming years in regardto the issue. It'salso set its sights on reducing workplace violence and ramping up services for people with autism.