1660 Duke Street

Alexandria, VA 22314

703-549-1500

Contact: Richard Kahn, Ph.D., Assistant Executive Vice President.

Overview: The American Diabetes Association (ADA) is a not-for-profit membership association that promotes efforts to prevent and cure diabetes and works to improve the well-being of people with diabetes and their families. It provides professional education programs, patient information materials/programs, research grant awards, and public awareness about diabetes. ADA's technology assessment activities include sponsoring consensus conferences, developing position papers, and publishing review articles.

Purpose: To provide health professionals and the public with accurate and comprehensive information about technologies relevant to diabetes.

Primary intended users: General public; people concerned about their health; patients; providers, generally; physicians; other care givers; health product manufacturers; health/medical professional associations; health industry associations; consumer associations; employers; unions and other employee organizations; third party payers; government regulators; voluntary associations, organizations; biomedical researchers; reporters, writers, news media; information/computer industry; labs, blood banks; public policy-makers, legislators; policy research organizations.

Technologies: Drug, device, medical or surgical procedure, support system, organizational or administrative system.

Intervention: Diagnosis, treatment, rehabilitation.

Stage: New, established or widespread practice.

Properties: Safety; efficacy; effectiveness; cost; cost-benefit; cost-effectiveness; service requirements; acceptance/adoption level; system impact; economic implications; ethical, legal, social implications.

Selection process: ADA board members and officers, professional members, and other agencies and institutions can request that an assessment be conducted. Written requests are submitted to the volunteer leadership or senior staff. The volunteer leadership sets the assessment topic priorities.

Methods: Information syntheses, expert opinion, group judgment, cost analyses.

The assessment process is conducted in committee meetings, symposia, and conferences. The approximate turnaround time from selection of assessment topic to reporting of findings is 6 months.

Assessors: The assessors have expertise in a wide variety of areas related to diabetes including medicine, nutrition, exercise, law, and public health.

Assessment reports include: The purpose of the assessment; relationship of this assessment to prior or concurrent assessments of the technology or other technologies intended for similar purposes; who conducted the assessment; description of the technology; properties assessed; procedure used for the assessment; sources of data/ information; methods for collecting data/information; methods for analyzing/synthesizing data/information; results; findings or conclusions; limitations of findings; implications of findings for practice; recommendations for practice, future assessments, technology development, research; how the technology works, including theory, principles; development of the technology; coverage/reimbursement status of the technology.

Dissemination: Printed reports; journal articles; advisories to members/constituents; press conferences/news releases; TV/radio broadcasts, video products.

The ADA accepts telephone and written requests for copies of assessment reports.

Budget: $100,000. The approximate cost per assessment ranges from $1,000 to $50,000. Funding sources: 5 percent government grants/contracts; 15 percent foundations, other private grants; 80 percent sponsors/members dues, contributions.

Use: The ADA uses the assessment reports and position statements as a guide for new program development and as an authoritative source of information. Reports are cited in government documents, newspaper articles, lay public magazines, and other publications.

Related activities: The ADA conducts an annual scientific session at which hundreds of original research reports are presented. The Association sponsors an annual postgraduate course, a research symposium, and other conferences intended to disseminate new information or to provide a forum for discussing important topics related to diabetes.