Our Care and Education Members

The Central East Regional Cardiovascular Rehab program serves the population within the Central East LHIN. Three diabetes related activities were added to the regional cardiac rehab program to alleviate the risk of hypo/hyperglycemia during exercise sessions and their further complication for increased cardiac events and coronary disease progression risk.

The first addition was a diabetes screening tool using the platform of Cardiologica. This screening tool provides a quick abbreviation review for each supervising therapist of each patient’s type of diabetes and their pharmacological regimen. For example, a person with a basal-bolus regimen would have the abbreviation MDI. The second addition was the creation of a diabetes monitoring standard work template providing each therapist an algorithm of questions to ask each patient depending on their type of diabetes, diabetes regimen and their overall glycemic control. This would then prompt the covering therapist if a self blood glucose check is necessary. This standard protocol also includes an emergency hypoglycemia and hyperglycemia algorithm; along with a description of each drug class to provide therapist’s a good knowledge base of their actions. The third addition is the ongoing education of therapists on diabetes and updating of new diabetes medications and insulin types.

Overall, these additions have aligned the regional cardiac rehab program with the Canadian Diabetes Guidelines in regards to appropriate self blood glucose checks to promote safety and thereby maximize fitness results of each patient in order to improve their overall quality of life and reduce hospitalizations while not adding to the economic cost of the program.