Cody Adams talks with Dr. Laura Hieronymus from UK Healthcare and Whitney Allen with United Healthcare Community Plan of Kentucky.
They have partnered with the UK Barnstable Brown to talk about pre-diabetes and the prevalence of diabetes in the state
Script: cody: i'm here with dr laura hieronymus from uk healthcare and whitney allen with united healthcare community plan of kentucky.
Thank you both so much for being here.
You guys are working together on something that i think is really cool.
Walk me through what this partnership is between you guys.
Whitney allen: sure.
We have partnered with the uk barnstable brown to talk about prediabetes and the prevalence of diabetes in the state.
One in three kentucky adults has prediabetes.
It can lead to type 2 diabetes and increased risk for heart disease and stroke.
However, it's a window of opportunity to prevent or delay type 2 diabetes, so partnering with dr. hieronymus and her group to talk about prediabetes and what we can do in rural communities.
Cody: talk about what you guys are doing, because figuring out before it's too late, is kind of a big aspect of all of this, right?
Dr. laura hieronymus: it's very big.
I'm with uk healthcare, the barnstable brown diabetes center, and we have a nationally recognized program of endocrinology clinics as well as a free standing diabetes education program.
We at uk healthcare emphasize the importance of prevention, education, comprehensive clinical care, as well as our research portfolio.
In this respect, we're focusing on prevention or delay of type 2 diabetes.
We have a grant from united healthcare to do a pilot project to look at disbursing that diabetes prevention program across the commonwealth of kentucky.
Cody: what we find a lot of times in this situation is sometimes people want to ignore some of those issues, that maybe they're having the health issues and not actually look into the fact that they may have prediabetes, and this is a way to kind of outreach that, correct?
Dr. laura hieronymus: it is.
It is at that, and i think that most people with prediabetes don't really have any symptoms. cody: yeah.
Dr. laura hieronymus: so unless they have lab work done, blood work done, they just don't know that they have it.
Cody: if people want more information on this, because i think they're going to, because people are going to be, "hey, maybe i should look into this," how can they do that?
Dr. laura hieronymus: they can call our office at, specifically our education services, at 859-323- bbdc, that's 2232 on your keypad.
They can call our office, and they'll want to punch you in option three so they get a hold of our diabetes education services.
Cody: thank you both so much for the work you're doing and for being here to talk about.
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Cody pre-recorded interview with UHC