1.0.0.0 In­tro­duc­tion

The Amer­i­can Di­a­betes As­so­ci­a­tion (ADA) “Stan­dards of Med­i­cal Care in Di­a­betes” in­cludes ADA’s cur­rent clin­i­cal prac­tice rec­om­men­da­tions and is in­tend­ed to pro­vide the com­po­nents of di­a­betes care, gen­er­al treat­ment goals and guide­lines, and tools to eval­u­ate qual­i­ty of care. Mem­bers of the ADA Pro­fes­sion­al Prac­tice Com­mit­tee, a mul­ti­dis­ci­plinary ex­pert com­mit­tee, are re­spon­si­ble for up­dat­ing the Stan­dards of Care an­nu­al­ly, or more fre­quent­ly as war­rant­ed. For a de­tailed de­scrip­tion of ADA stan­dards, state­ments, and re­ports, as well as the ev­i­dence-‍grad­ing sys­tem for ADA’s clin­i­cal prac­tice rec­om­men­da­tions, please refer to the Stan­dards of Care In­tro­duc­tion. Read­ers who wish to com­ment on the Stan­dards of Care are in­vit­ed to do so at pro­fes­sion­al.di­a­betes.org/‍SOC.

Lifestyle man­age­ment is a fun­da­men­tal as­pect of di­a­betes care and in­cludes di­a­betes self-‍man­age­ment ed­u­ca­tion and sup­port (DSMES), med­i­cal nu­tri­tion ther­a­py (MNT), phys­i­cal ac­tiv­i­ty, smok­ing ces­sa­tion coun­sel­ing, and psy­choso­cial care. Pa­tients and care pro­viders should focus to­geth­er on how to op­ti­mize lifestyle from the time of the ini­tial com­pre­hen­sive med­i­cal eval­u­a­tion, through­out all sub­se­quent eval­u­a­tions and fol­low-‍up, and dur­ing the as­sess­ment of com­pli­ca­tions and man­age­ment of co­mor­bid con­di­tions in order to en­hance di­a­betes care.