Tag Archive for: diabetes distress

,

From Burnout to Belonging: Humanizing the Diabetes Experience

The Side of Diabetes We Don’t Talk About Enough

When we think of diabetes management, we often think of tasks: Check. Count carbs. Correct. Dose insulin. (Log?) Repeat.

But behind those tasks lies something much heavier, which is the emotional labor of a chronic condition that never takes a day off. We all know the feeling.

Burnout, frustration, fear, exhaustion, invisibility, which are unsurprisingly just as much a part of the diabetes experience as insulin, pumps and glucose meters.

And yet, the emotional side remains one of the least addressed aspects of care. Minimal check ins and management, often unless you are strong enough to admit that you need support yourself.

We cannot build truly person-centered diabetes care without naming this truth: diabetes is not just managed. It’s carried.

What Diabetes Burnout Really Looks Like

Diabetes burnout isn’t laziness, noncompliance, or a lack of education. It is rather the natural human response to relentless pressure.

It can look like, for example, ignoring numbers because they feel too overwhelming, feeling judged by a device or a graph, resenting a body that seems unpredictable, dreading appointments instead of looking forward to support, or that dreaded feeling of feeling alone, even when surrounded by people who very well understand you and where you are.

Burnout is not a personal failing, it is a signal that you need better support.

Is “Belonging” The Antidote to Burnout?

If burnout thrives in isolation, then belonging thrives in connection. At least it should.

Belonging means to be listened to without judgment, to know that your experiences are valid, to feel safe to share the hard moments, to be seen as a partner, not someone to be managed, as well as to see your reality reflected in that of others.

This is where person-centered care becomes transformative. Because person-centered care doesn’t just treat the condition,
it truly supports the person carrying it.

What Does It Really Take to Humanize Diabetes Care?

Healthcare systems often focus on what’s quantifiable, numbers, results, something palpable to show how you are doing in your management. Yet, something as “fluffy” as emotional wellbeing is (also) central to outcomes, resilience, and long-term engagement.

To humanize care, we have to start asking about how people feel, not just how they dose, normalize discussions about diabetes distress and burnout, engage in training healthcare teams in empathy and trauma-informed communication, integrate mental health support as part of standard care, encourage shared decision-making, not “compliance”-based conversations, and, perhaps most importantly. make room for the person’s life context, values, and emotional needs!

This is not “soft care.” It is foundational care, which leads to better clinical, emotional, and quality-of-life outcomes.

Where VBHC Meets Human Experience

In Value-Based Health Care (VBHC), health is defined by outcomes that matter to patients. And what actually matters most often lies beyond clinical metrics.

This is why I’m so fascinated by VBHC tools, because PROMs and PREMs have the ability to capture elements like emotional wellbeing, confidence in self-management and self-care, social participation, trust in the care team, and if there is a sense of control for the person.

These are not secondary factors. They are the difference between surviving and living fully with diabetes.

Systems that honor these outcomes create healthcare environments where belonging becomes part of the treatment plan.

The Power of Diabetes Burnout

During a workshop a few years ago, I asked participants living with type 1 diabetes to describe the hardest part of their daily management.

Not one person mentioned A1c, insulin, time-in-range, or tech.

Instead, they mentioned things like:

“The pressure.”
“The guilt.”
“The loneliness.”
“The fear of getting it wrong.”

That day, something became very clear for me, which is that diabetes care must expand to include emotional infrastructure, or it will always fall short of outcomes that matter to people living with diabetes.

From Burnout to Belonging: A Vision for What’s Possible

Imagine a world where emotional support is routine, not reactive, where people feel safe sharing the messy middle, and healthcare teams value emotional data as much as clinical data. Additionally, care is measured not only in metrics, but in meaning, and belonging is built into the system, not left to chance?

This is the future of person-centered care. And it especially has to become the future of diabetes care. The best thing is that it’s within reach if we choose to prioritize humanity in healthcare.

Let’s Talk About It

What’s something you wish your diabetes care team understood about the emotional side of diabetes?

Or, if you’re a healthcare professional, what helps you create a space of belonging for your patients?

Share your thoughts below or connect with me on LinkedIn or Instagram (@hannadiabetesexpert).


Humanizing care starts with conversations like these. 💙

/0 Comments/by
,

Person-Centered Diabetes Care: The Future of Health

Imagine this…

You walk into your diabetes appointment.

The nurse doesn’t start by asking about your blood sugar levels.

Instead, they begin with:

“How are you coping lately?”
“What’s been hardest for you?”
“What would make life with diabetes easier right now?”

It sounds simple. But it’s still far too rare.

For decades, diabetes care has been built around numbers, not narratives. Around protocols, not people. Around disease, not the person living with it every day.

Yet the truth is this: people don’t live with diabetes in 15-minute (at best!) appointment slots.

They live with it 24/7, constantly balancing data, decisions, emotions, and daily life.

The shift we need: from managing conditions to understanding people

As someone who’s lived with type 1 diabetes for four decades, works within healthcare systems, and advocates for better outcomes, I’ve seen firsthand how transformative it can be when care becomes truly person-centered.

But let’s be clear: person-centered care isn’t just a warm-and-fuzzy slogan. It’s a strategic, evidence-based approach that recognizes each individual’s values, goals, and lived experience as essential data points in care delivery.

When we shift the focus from “What’s your A1c?” to “What matters to you?”, a lot has the possibility to change.

What person-centered diabetes care really means

Person-centered diabetes care goes far beyond being “nice” or empathetic. It’s about co-creating care that fits a person’s life, and not forcing life to fit the care plan.

It means:

  • Listening before prescribing, starting with the story, not the statistics.
  • Co-designing goals based on what’s meaningful to the person, not just what’s measurable.
  • Acknowledging mental load, recognizing diabetes distress, burnout, and the emotional side of chronic management. See the recent Clinical Guidelines on Diabetes Distress by EASD for more info here!
  • Building trust and partnership, making the person an active participant, not a passive recipient.

This approach aligns beautifully with Value-Based Health Care (VBHC) principles, where success is measured not only by clinical outcomes (CROMs) but also by Patient-Reported Outcomes and Experiences (PROMs and PREMs), comprising a key reflection of whether care delivers outcomes that matter the most.

Why person-centered care leads to better clinical outcomes

Research consistently shows that when care is person-centered:

  • People are more engaged in caring for themselves.
  • Clinicians experience less burnout through meaningful partnerships.
  • Health systems achieve better outcomes per unit of cost.

But beyond metrics, the human impact is undeniable. When we feel heard, respected, and seen, we are more motivated to manage our health, leading to a transformative shift.

A story that stays with me

A few years ago, I spoke with a young woman who was newly diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. Her first appointment focused entirely on insulin doses and carb ratios. When she finally asked, “Is it normal to feel completely overwhelmed?”, the nurse replied, “Let’s not get into that right now.”

That moment shaped her trust in the healthcare system, along with her ability to engage with it, for years.

Person-centered care could have changed that story.

The relatively simple question of “how are you doing with all this?” could have opened the door to understanding, support, and hope.

The future of diabetes care is relational, not transactional

The next frontier in diabetes care isn’t another app or device (although innovation has and continues to help the daily management extensively).

We need to start looking further, toward a cultural shift from systems that treat to systems that partner.

When care teams, patients, policymakers, and industry collaborate around shared goals and lived experience, diabetes care becomes not just effective but increasingly human, which is much needed in a world that is increasingly driven by AI tools and solutions.

Let’s rethink care, together

So, what if diabetes care actually started with the person?

What if every clinic, policy, and innovation began with one simple question:

“What matters most to you right now?”

That’s the future I believe in. It’s the one I’m working toward through advocacy, education, and collaboration.

Over to you…

What does person-centered care mean to you (as a healthcare professional, person with diabetes, caregiver, pharma, policy maker, or insurer)?

Share your thoughts below or connect with me on LinkedIn or Instagram @hannadiabetesexpert. Let’s move this conversation, along with diabetes care, forward.

/0 Comments/by