Borgess Diabetes Center
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Diabetes
Borgess Diabetes Center
Diabetes Center Professionals
Testimonials
Awards
Diabetes
Diabetes, a disease in which the body does not produce or properly use insulin to regulate blood sugar, affects 24 million Americans —about 8% of the population. Annual economic costs were close to $180 billion dollars in 2008. Without appropriate treatment, diabetes can lead to heart disease, blindness, kidney failure, infection, nerve damage and death.
An estimated 22,000 persons in Kalamazoo have Type 1 or Type 2 diabetes, and it is the sixth leading cause of death. With a population of 240,000, more than one in eight persons in Kalamazoo County lives below the federal poverty level. A large number of others have incomes not far above that line.
Diabetic patients who have access to medicines, supplies and education about self-managing their condition lower their risk of severe complications. Current economic conditions have lowered the chance a patient will self-manage their disease. Financial constraints may cause patients to decide not to fill prescriptions, discontinue prescriptions, or divide dosages. Patients are running out of money for essentials, and many do not consider medicine an essential. They reach a point where they cannot afford co-pays or deductibles. The results are painful and irreversible physical complications that severely affect their quality of life, and high medical costs to society.
A reassessment of intervention strategies and implementation of new approaches to identifying and then helping people with diabetes manage their condition more effectively is needed. In Kalamazoo County, the Borgess Diabetes Center is one new approach.
Borgess Diabetes Center
The Borgess Diabetes Center provides physician clinical care and diabetes education for people with diabetes who are uninsured, cannot afford to obtain regular medical care, and live in the Greater Kalamazoo area. While many services are offered to uninsured residents in the county, prior to the Diabetes Center, dedicated diabetes care was not among them.
The clinic is housed within Borgess Health, lowering or eliminating facility and equipment expenses. Here, quality service is provided to uninsured or underinsured patients who would otherwise receive limited or no medical treatment for their condition. Diabetes care in this physician-based setting reduces the use of local emergency rooms for routine diabetes treatment, and also reduces hospitalizations.
Touchdown for Diabetes, organized by Cole Community Solutions, is the primary source of funding for the Diabetes Center.
To learn more about the Borgess Diabetes Center, available medical care, medicines, and/or education call (269)226-8321.
To learn more about the Borgess Diabetes Center, available medical care, medicines, and/or education call (269)226-8321.
Diabetes Update Newsletter Volume 1, Issue 2
Diabetes Update Newsletter Volume 1, Issue 1
Diabetes Center Professionals
Dr. Michael Valitutto, DO
The Borgess Diabetes Center is under the direction of Dr. Michael Valitutto, DO, a NCQA Recognized Physician — an elite group recognized for skill in providing the highest level diabetes care.
Dr. Valitutto graduated from the University of Osteopathic Medicine and Health Sciences in Des Moines, Iowa. He completed his internship and residency training in internal medicine at St. John’s Hospital in Detroit. He is board certified by the American Osteopathic Board of Internal Medicine. In addition to his physician practice, he participates in clinical research in diabetes. He is also a national speaker on diabetes to physicians and other health care professionals and is a clinical leader in the development and implementation of inpatient and outpatient diabetes protocols at Borgess.
Joyce Byers, MS, CDE, FNP-BC
Ms. Byers received a master’s degree in nursing administration from Andrews University in Berrien Springs and a post-master’s certificate in the family nurse practitioner program at Michigan State University. A certified diabetes educator (CDE), she is a member of the American Association of Diabetes Educators and Michigan Organization of Diabetes Educators.
Testimonials
MariLou Hall
MariLou Hall will be the first to tell you that she didn’t take good enough care of the Type 2 diabetes that she had battled for nearly two decades.
“I did see a doctor at the free clinic in Hastings and I took nighttime insulin shots, but that was about it,” said the 63-year-old Alamo resident.
“I don’t have health insurance and so I didn’t take very good care of myself.”
This spring, however, she was admitted to Borgess Medical Center with kidney failure and a diagnosis of possible congestive heart failure.
“That was a wake-up call to take better care of my diabetes,” she said.
“The people at Borgess were absolutely wonderful and they got me through it. They were very, very supportive of me.”
Tests showed that MariLou didn’t have congestive heart failure after all. Her symptoms were related to kidney failure and the diabetes, both of which are now being
treated with medications. She still doesn’t have health insurance and her application to be accepted into the Medicaid program remains pending.
But that doesn’t matter. Her diabetes treatment through the Borgess Diabetes Center uninsured clinic is funded by Cole Community Solutions. The funds provide Kalamazoo-area residents who have diabetes with the help, such as physician care, diabetes self-care education and lab testing that they may not otherwise receive.
“The professional care and counseling I have been getting at the Borgess Diabetes Center has been very valuable to me,” MariLou said. They always anticipate what I need and are ready for me.
“I still have a ways to go, but I am doing so much better. I would do anything I can to help them.”
Awards
The Diabetes Center recently received the Ludwig Community Benefit Award from the Michigan Health & Hospital Association (MHA). MHA noted that diabetes is the sixth-leading cause of death in Kalamazoo County, and, in 2010, Borgess Diabetes Center became the only full-service diabetes treatment program in the region with funding to serve low-income, uninsured, or underinsured patients.
