Partnership within our communities is essential to creating positive outcomes for everyone living with or affected by diabetes. That’s why Diabetes Action Canada (DAC) is pleased to announce South Riverdale Community Health Centre (SRCHC) as our first official Knowledge User partner. The relationship, focused around DAC’s Diabetic Retinopathy Screening program, brings together a wealth of expertise and experience to reduce the risk of vision loss or blindness for those at risk.

The DAC network is focused on fostering meaningful connections between patients, their caregivers, and researchers, enabling them to collaboratively develop research questions, plan implementation strategies, and inform knowledge mobilization efforts. The ultimate goal is to ensure research outcomes have a tangible impact on transforming healthcare practice and policy. To achieve this, DAC collaborates with a wide array of partners, including academic hospitals, Patient Partners, government entities, and community healthcare settings, such as SRCHC.

“As a Knowledge User, SRCHC is an integral part of DAC’s collaborative network, actively contributing to the advancement of patient-oriented research and the development of innovative approaches to diabetes in community settings,” says Tracy McQuire, Executive Director for Diabetes Action Canada. “This partnership gives SRCHC access to resources and expertise within the DAC network of researchers and organizations dedicated to improving diabetes management and care. We hope that through this collaboration we will see wonderful advances in how people with diabetes are supported and how care is delivered in community health settings.”

“For more than ten years, SRCHC has partnered with UHN to provide diabetes eye screening to low-income and marginalized individuals living with diabetes, enabling them to develop considerable expertise in operationalizing diabetes eye screening in community-based settings. The Diabetes Eye Screening Program (DESP), operated by SRCHC, is the top-performing tele-ophthalmology program in the province based on current fiscal numbers screened and total numbers screened since the programs started. SRCHC’s DESP has screened approximately 4,000 individuals since its inception,” says M. Ann Phillips, Director of Community Health & Chronic Disease at SRCHC.

 “We are excited to continue to partner with Diabetes Action Canada and Ontario Health to spread and scale the programs across the province and inform policies related to provincial-level diabetes eye screening and limb preservation work. We believe that by working together we will be able to enhance the health system and Ontario Health’s understanding of diabetes eye screening as an ideal case for population-level health management,” says Shannon Wiens, VP of Systems and Strategy at SRCHC.

Learn more about Diabetes Action Canada’s Diabetic Retinopathy Screening program.