Winner
Changing Diabetes ® in Children
Summary of work
An estimated 497,000 children have type 1 diabetes worldwide. About half live in low-income countries, often without the necessary treatment. These children have high mortality rates, and in some sub-Saharan African countries life-expectancy is less than one year after diagnosis.
As a response, Novo Nordisk, a global healthcare company with leadership in diabetes care, established the Changing Diabetes® in Children programme in 2009. Working in partnership with Roche, the International Society for Pediatric and Adolescent Diabetes (ISPAD) and the World Diabetes Foundation (WDF), Novo Nordisk aims to build long-term solutions for improving availability, accessibility, affordability and quality of care for children with type 1 diabetes.
The programme establishes clinics where children are diagnosed and receive specialised care. It also trains healthcare professionals, and educates patients and families about caring for a child with diabetes. To overcome financial hurdles, it entails free provision of insulin and blood glucose measuring equipment for the children.
In 2013-2014, 3,489 new children were enrolled, 33 new clinics established and 2,918 new healthcare professionals trained. The programme runs in nine countries.
Judges’ comments
Novo Nordisk has produced a really tremendous programme. Local engagement was excellent; the strategy of collaboration operated at the highest level and brought in the rest of the cross functional team. Throughout they showed clear sustainability and operational learnings that enabled them to continuously improve. Quite simply, the judges loved every single element.
