On 1 July 2010 Ireland's Health Service Executive (HSE) introduced a new way of reporting blood glucose control in people with diabetes. To explain the impact of this change to clinicians and to people with diabetes, the HSE has created an online resource at a dedicated page on its website at www.hse.ie/go/diabetes.

Nearly everybody with diabetes knows how important sustained good control of blood glucose is. The international organisations for laboratory medicine and diabetes have put in place a means for the worldwide standardisation of the test which measures one's recent average blood glucose level, the HbA1c blood test. This will make the measurement more accurate and allow for better comparisons of HbA1c results from different laboratories and hospitals throughout the world. These developments are supported by the international diabetes organisations, including the Diabetes Federation of Ireland.

Therefore and since 1 July 2010, the HbA1c results in Ireland have been reported in new units called mmol/mol and in the traditional way as a percentage. This is called 'dual reporting' and will continue until the end of 2011 after which only the new units will be reported. It is likely that most people with diabetes will only have three or four HbA1c measurements made during the period of dual reporting so it is important that they become familiar with the new numbers from early on, especially those numbers that concern the management of their own diabetes. The resource found at www.hse.ie/go/diabetes was created for this purpose. On that page people will moreover find a handy converter to convert results from one reporting system to the other.

According to Dr. Ned Barrett, Consultant Clinical Biochemist, and Chairman of the HSE Project Team, "The quality of HbA1c results provided by the laboratories in this country is very good. Because of this, it is likely we may be able to use HbA1c to diagnose diabetes within the next couple of years and health service planners may be able to use community-wide HbA1c data to plan diabetes services into the future."

"All of these changes provide a valuable opportunity for all involved in diabetes care to highlight once again the importance of sustained good control of blood glucose in preventing the complications of diabetes" he added.

Background information:

The Health Service Executive (HSE) was established in January 2005 as the single body with statutory responsibility for the management and delivery of health and personal social services in the Republic of Ireland. The HSE manages services through a structure designed to put patients and clients at the centre of the organisation. 

 

Further information: 

• Original news article - the Health Service Executive
• Diabetes page - the Health Service Executive