IQECAD - Initiative for Quality Improvement and Epidemiology in Children and Adolescents with Diabetes

Last updated on 24-1-2024 by Suchsia Chao
Project duration:
February 1, 2009
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Project with no end date

In short

Diabetes is one of the most common metabolic diseases in children worldwide. Without a continuous treatment and monitoring, diabetes mellitus can lead to severe microvascular and macrovascular complication. In Belgium, about 17 centres are recognized by the INAMI-RIZIV for the treatment of diabetes in youth (list only available in Dutch or French). Through regular data collections, the IQECAD  project monitors quality of care in these centres and provides individualised feedback , helping the centres to improve their quality of care.

Project description

Diabetes is a burden for both patients and their parents who need to receive a specific education to properly manage the disease.  Beside vascular complications, diabetes in youth is also linked with higher risk of diabetic ketoacidosis, severe episodes of hypoglycemia and comorbidity. Therefore management of diabetes in young patients should cover periodic assessment, attentive monitoring for glycemic control and screening of vascular complication and comorbidity.

Since 2008, multidisciplinary pediatric diabetes centres can apply for recognition (information only available in Dutch or French) from the INAMI-RIZIV. For continued recognition, centres need to participate in IQECAD. The project is executed by Sciensano and governed by a group of national experts.

Study design

IQECAD uses the so-called audit-feedback method to monitor quality of care and support healthcare providers in improving quality of care.

Periodically, recognized centres are invited to participate in the IQECAD audit. Centres are required to retrospectively provide data on the characteristics, treatment and outcomes of all type 1 diabetic patients aged less than 19 years old who have given informed consent. 

Audits are performed using the Healthdata.be platform, where the current inclusion criteria and questionnaire items can be consulted.

Results

After each audit, centres receive individualized feedback, allowing them to see where improvement may be needed. In IQECAD, the quality indicators are based on the recommendations of the American Diabetes Association (ADA) and the International Society for Pediatric and Adolescent Diabetes (ISPAD). 

Each cycle is closed with the publication of a global report on the findings of that cycle and the evolutions across cycles.

Legal information

The Sectoral Committee of Social Security and Health has authorised the transmission and use of these pseudonymized data (authorisation only available in Dutch or French).

Sciensano and RIZIV/INAMI are responsible for the processing of the data. The processing is based on the grounds of public interest (art. 6.1 (e) of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)) and in particular for data concerning health, for reasons of public interest in the areas of public health (art. 9.2 (i), of the GDPR).

Individuals treated in these centres are informed about the data collection through their physician and are invited to give their informed consent if they want to participate.

Sciensano's project investigator(s):

Service(s) working on this project

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