Roche Diabetes Care Announces Unique Coaching Program for Diabetes Educators as Part of Long-Term Commitment to Fight the Disease

Program helps diabetes educators better engage and motivate their patients with the goal of more positive outcomes.

INDIANAPOLIS, June 30 /PRNewswire/ -- Roche, the maker of ACCU-CHEK blood glucose monitoring systems and insulin pumps, announced today the latest component of its Behavior Change through Patient Engagement (sm) program. Creative Coaching is an advanced educational program that fights the growing epidemic of diabetes by improving dialogue between diabetes educators and their patients.

"As the world leader in diabetes diagnostics, we truly appreciate the efforts of educators, and other healthcare professionals, who help their patients lead healthier lifestyles," said Sr. Vice President & General Manager of Roche Diabetes Care North America Luc Vierstraete. "They represent the front lines in the fight against poorly managed diabetes and its devastating effects. These professionals are already so adept at the science of diabetes - this program helps them with the art of patient engagement."

Recent participants in the program say they value not only the foundation of adult learning styles and coaching skills, but also the ability to interact with one another while learning how to effectively integrate ACCU-CHEK products and tools. When educators return to their practices they are better prepared to apply best practices and achieve breakthroughs with their patients.

"What I appreciated most was the purpose of the weekend, which was to increase the quality of our healthcare," said Diabetes Educator Linda Filipi, BSN, RN of Laguna Hills, California. "For us that means how to become better educators - for (Roche) it is how to offer quality products. The end result is the same: it means that patients live longer, healthier and happier lives."

Creative Coaching is just one part of the Behavior Change through Patient Engagement program. Other elements include education to healthcare professionals on psychological barriers to self-care, direct-to-patient education that helps adults, children and teens make self-management easier; and simple, paper-based tools that help patients discover how the actions they take every day matter.

"A worldwide strategic objective for Roche is to 'Enable Diabetes Management,'" Vierstraete said. "We take this very seriously - in the U.S. alone we have invested more than $14 million in the overall campaign. By locking arms with these dedicated healthcare professionals and providing them with a forum to improve patient self-care, we feel certain this can be achieved."

About Roche Diabetes Care

Roche Diabetes Care is a pioneer in the development of blood glucose monitoring systems and a global leader for diabetes management systems and services. For more than 30 years, Roche has been committed to helping people with diabetes live lives that are as normal and active as possible and has been helping healthcare professionals manage their patients' condition in an optimal way. Today, the ACCU-CHEK portfolio offers people with diabetes and healthcare professionals innovative products, services and comprehensive solutions for convenient, efficient and effective diabetes management--from blood glucose monitoring through information management to insulin delivery. The ACCU-CHEK brand encompasses blood glucose meters, infusion pumps, lancing and data management systems.

For more information, please visit accu-chek.com.

About Roche

Headquartered in Basel, Switzerland, Roche is a leader in research-focused healthcare with combined strengths in pharmaceuticals and diagnostics. Roche is the world's largest biotech company with truly differentiated medicines in oncology, virology, inflammation, metabolism and CNS. Roche is also the world leader in in-vitro diagnostics, tissue-based cancer diagnostics and a pioneer in diabetes management. Roche's personalized healthcare strategy aims at providing medicines and diagnostic tools that enable tangible improvements in the health, quality of life and survival of patients.

In 2008, Roche had over 80,000 employees worldwide and invested almost 9 billion Swiss francs in R & D. The Group posted sales of 45.6 billion Swiss francs. Genentech, United States, is a wholly owned member of the Roche Group. Roche has a majority stake in Chugai Pharmaceutical, Japan. For more information: www.roche-diagnostics.us.

All trademarks used or mentioned in this release are protected by law.

    For further information, please contact:
    Julie Vincent
    Public Relations Manager
    ACCU-CHEK(R) Brand
    julie.vincent@roche.com
    317-521-1910

SOURCE Roche Diabetes Care

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