Innovations in healthcare delivery and policy: Implications for the role of the psychologist in preventing and treating diabetes

Abstract

Although the biomedical model has dominated U.S. health care for more than a century, it has failed to adequately address current U.S. health care challenges, including the treatment and prevention of chronic disease; the epidemic rise in diabetes is one important example. In response, newer models of health care have been developed that address patients' mental and physical health concerns by multidisciplinary care teams that place the patient and family in the center of shared decision making. These new models of care offer many important opportunities for psychologists to play a larger role in the prevention and treatment of diabetes. However, for psychology's role to be fully realized, both external and internal challenges must be addressed. This will require psychologists to become more interdisciplinary, more familiar with the larger health care culture, more willing to expand their skill sets, and more collaborative with other health disciplines both from a patient-care and a larger advocacy perspective.