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.

Man­ag­ing the daily health de­mands of di­a­betes can be chal­leng­ing. Peo­ple liv­ing with di­a­betes should not have to face ad­di­tion­al dis­crim­i­na­tion due to di­a­betes. By ad­vo­cat­ing for the rights of those with di­a­betes at all lev­els, the Amer­i­can Di­a­betes As­so­ci­a­tion (ADA) can help to en­sure that they live a healthy and pro­duc­tive life. A strate­gic goal of the ADA is that more chil­dren and adults with di­a­betes live free from the bur­den of dis­crim­i­na­tion. The ADA is also fo­cused on mak­ing sure cost is not a bar­ri­er to suc­cess­ful di­a­betes man­age­ment.

One tac­tic for achiev­ing these goals has been to im­ple­ment the ADA’s Stan­dards of Care through ad­vo­ca­cy-‍ori­ent­ed po­si­tion state­ments. The ADA pub­lish­es ev­i­dence-‍based, peer-‍re­viewed state­ments on top­ics such as di­a­betes and em­ploy­ment, di­a­betes and driv­ing, in­sulin ac­cess and af­ford­abil­i­ty, and di­a­betes man­age­ment in cer­tain set­tings such as schools, child care pro­grams, and cor­rec­tion­al in­sti­tu­tions. In ad­di­tion to the ADA’s clin­i­cal doc­u­ments, these ad­vo­ca­cy state­ments are im­por­tant tools in ed­u­cat­ing schools, em­ploy­ers, li­cens­ing agen­cies, pol­i­cy mak­ers, and oth­ers about the in­ter­sec­tion of di­a­betes medicine and the law and for pro­vid­ing sci­en­tifically sup­port­ed pol­i­cy rec­om­men­da­tions.