This Quality Improvement Activity enables you to review the glycaemic management of your type 2 diabetes patients and identify those who may benefit from initiation or intensification of blood glucose lowering medicines.

Good glycaemic control has a clear benefit on microvascular outcomes and if started early enough, on long-term macrovascular outcomes of coronary artery disease, stroke and peripheral vascular disease.

Diabetes clinical nurse specialist Lisa Sparks discusses the place of empagliflozin and dulaglutide in treatment of type 2 diabetes, with emphasis on potential side effects, sick-day management and improving patient adherence.

This list of Q&A reflects issues discussed in webinars held early in 2021.

The content has been edited, and reviewed by Waikato DHB endocrinologist/diabetologist Dr Ryan Paul.

Your patient uses gliclazide and insulin but could still benefit from the additional cardiovascular and renal protections of empagliflozin. How would you manage the change in treatment? 

This case study is particularly relevant to prescribers. It originally appeared in the 3 March 2021 issue of New Zealand Doctor Rata Aotearoa and has been republished with permission.

Current management of type 2 diabetes includes two new classes of medication, SGLT2 inhibitors and GLP-1 receptor agonists, where clinically indicated. This article was published in the April 2021 edition of Kai Tiaki. It has been edited specifically for our nursing readership from an article that appeared in New Zealand Doctor and Pharmacy Today late in 2020. 

This article is endorsed by the College of Nurses Aotearoa (NZ) Inc.

Health inequities in the detection and management of diabetes and its associated health outcomes are significant concerns in New Zealand. The first step to addressing inequitable health outcomes is knowing that they exist.

In this webinar, Dr Ryan Paul discusses the changes to type 2 diabetes care in 2021, including when and how to use SGLT2 inhibitors and GLP-1 agonists. You can watch the webinar here or in ELearning. 

Downloadable empagliflozin patient information and a recent slide presentation can be found within this article.

If you're having trouble pronouncing the name of the newly funded SGLT2 inhibitor for type 2 diabetes, you're not the only one! Watch our video guide to learn how to pronounce empagliflozin. 

Inequities exist in all aspects of diabetes care. In this article, Alesha Smith outlines some examples, proposes some actions, and explains where the new medicines fit in. 

This activity has been endorsed by The Royal New Zealand College of General Practitioners (RNZCGP) and has been approved for up to 0.5 CME credits for the General Practice Educational Programme (GPEP) and Continuing Professional Development (CPD) purposes.

In this webinar, Dr Rinki Murphy discusses the issue of inequity in diabetes care.