Diabetes

At Nemours Divisions of Endocrinology our goal is to help your family succeed in managing diabetes, whether your child was just recently diagnosed with diabetes or has been living with it for a while now. Our entire teams of experts, specially trained in diabetes diagnosis and care, are dedicated to helping patients (and parents like you) manage your child’s disease successfully.

Diabetes happens when the pancreas doesn’t manufacture any or enough of a hormone called insulin, which enables cells to take in glucose (a sugar that comes from food or is made by the body – and is the body’s main source of energy). For good health, the body must be able to keep insulin and glucose levels in balance.

At Nemours, we make sure your family gets the very best in diabetes care to help you learn how to keep your child’s blood sugar levels under control. With proper nutrition, exercise, insulin therapy and/or other medications, and the latest devices and techniques, along with intensive, ongoing education and support, our goal is to give your family the tools and information you need to ensure that your child’s diabetes is well controlled at all times.

Our comprehensive diabetes services

At Nemours, we offer our patients and families a total care experience to ensure that your child stays healthy and can live a productive, normal life today and in the future – despite diabetes. Our programs for babies, kids, and teens include services like:

• in-office hemoglobin A1c testing (or HbA1c – a test that reflects how your child’s blood sugars have been running for the past three months) – with results in minutes
• convenient blood sugar reporting (by e-mail, fax, or phone)
• access to established and emerging diabetes technologies including insulin pump therapy and continuous glucose seonsor devices.
  
• inpatient and outpatient diagnostic and therapeutic services
• individualized diabetes education from American Diabetes Association-accredited programs
• 24-hour, on-call support for patient emergencies
• links to support groups for kids and families
• nutrition and weight management services

Our efforts to work together to help your child

When you visit Nemours, we’re here to listen and respond to your families’ needs, questions, and concerns about diabetes. At our convenient Nemours locations, our caring, experienced, skilled teams dedicated to helping diabetes patients and their families usually include:

• board-certified pediatric endocrinologists (pediatricians specializing in diabetes and other hormone problems)
• specialty nurses and nurse practitioners
• certified diabetes educators (CDEs)
• registered dietitians

Diabetes can affect or occur with problems in other systems in the body, too. To help prevent or treat other diseases associated with diabetes, Nemours’ endocrinologists often collaborate with additional specialists throughout our health care system, which may include:

• pulmonologists – who can help children with cystic fibrosis-related diabetes 
• ophthalmologists – who can help monitor for or treat any vision problems 
• nephrologists – who can help kids with diabetes and renal (kidney) disease or high blood pressure (available at certain Nemours locations)
• cardiologists – who can help prevent/treat heart disease in children who have high blood pressure or cholesterol or blood lipid abnormalities (also available at certain Nemours locations)
• gastroenterologists – who can help with nutrition, weight management, and gastrointestinal (GI) conditions (like celiac disease) that can occur more frequently in children with diabetes 
• psychologists/psychiatrists– who can help children with diabetes better cope with their disease

We can often schedule any additional required appointments with other Nemours physicians together - saving you precious time.

And NemoursOne, our fully integrated electronic medical record (EMR), helps cut down on duplication of tests or services and allows for timely communication among direct and supporting members of your child’s care team who offer this service. Our EMR system tracks every test result and treatment of each of the thousands of patients we see every year at Nemours. We use this information to provide better care for all of our diabetes patients. These data also support our research studies aimed at finding new and better ways to manage – and one day, perhaps prevent or cure – diabetes.

Our dedication to research

Whether we’re in the research lab, the Clinical Research center at the hospital, or the exam room, across Nemours, our efforts work together to support excellent patient care. We’re fortunate to be part of some very exciting studies that are quickly translating into direct benefits for children with diabetes.

And we’re so proud to have several of the nation’s leading pediatric endocrinology experts right here at Nemours. Their work in biomedical and clinical research with patients and families is validated year after year through grants and awards from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the American Diabetes Association (ADA), and the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF) – just to name a few.

Our involvement with your whole family

Managing diabetes can require specific emotional, behavioral, and mental skills – from parents, your child with diabetes, and siblings. That’s why we’ll help engage your whole family in the education and diabetes management process. Together, we’ll help everyone in your home learn how they can play a role in helping to more successfully manage your child’s diabetes.

Our educational efforts in the community

Beyond our hospital and clinic walls, we work in Nemours’ surrounding communities to increase awareness of diabetes – informing the public about warning signs and associated risks, providing free screenings, and offering educational opportunities in school settings for principals, teachers, and school nurses. We feel very strongly that helping to create a community of caregivers is important to supporting children – and families like yours – in successfully managing diabetes.