Background: India with the second highest number of individuals with diabetes in world with primary care physicians being the main workforce to deal with any health related problem at the grass root level. Every year more than 50,000 medical graduates join the health workforce from different medical institutions. Despite this, there is a huge disproportion between patients to doctor ratio. In addition, these PCPs are unable to manage the 72.9 million people suffering from diabetes all across the country due to paucity of diabetes related education and training programs.
Intervention: An integrated education program for primary care physicians (PCPs) was launched by Public Health Foundation of India and Dr Mohan’s Diabetes Education Academy. This program was supported by an education fund from a funding partner with the ultimate goal of providing evidence based care to individuals with diabetes and reducing future risk of complications. This educational program aims to build the skills and core competencies of primary care physicians, and create a network among primary care physicians, endocrinologists and diabetologists to establish robust linkages for better patient outcomes and since its inception (2010), it has trained more than 10000 PCPs. The course has been recognized by IDF and SAFES.
Results: Significant knowledge improvement (P value <0.005) was noticed among PCPs after attending the contact sessions. The cause facilitated a systematic approach for treatment of diabetes by majority of the participants in their daily clinical practice. PCPs found themselves more confident (91%) in managing not only diabetes but also related complications after completing the program. After completion of the program, PCPs managed the diabetes cases routinely and with confidence; and referring complicated case to appropriate healthcare institute (89.4%). Some of the PCPs started displaying IEC aids in their clinics and upgraded their in-clinic facilities for better diagnosis and counselling.
Conclusion: This effective program in building capacity and skills of PCPs in the management of diabetes needs potential pathways for scale up to reach out to a wider audience of healthcare providers.