Cedar City Diabetes Clinic's year of making a difference

Diabetes can feel overwhelming and confusing as diabetes patients learn to manage glucose testing, diet and medications along with ongoing health complications. For Cedar City diabetes patients, one year of specialized care can make all the difference, especially for patients receiving care at the Cedar City Diabetes and Endocrine Clinic.

The Cedar City Diabetes and Endocrine Clinic opened mid-2023 and within a year, the clinic team has built a strong and highly recognized clinic for the care they are providing in the Iron County area. The clinic recently celebrated its one-year anniversary and patients are eagerly sharing their story of how a diabetes clinic, their staff and their education has helped them find a way to manage diabetes better. Among those grateful patients is Dakota King who is sharing his story on the difference having a diabetes clinic in a smaller community can make.

Dakota’s story is life changing. In fact, he credits Cedar City Hospital Diabetes Clinic Manager, Harmony Rosenberg, and her staff with saving his life. Dakota, who was diagnosed with juvenile diabetes, has had a bumpy, and at times terrifying road to managing his diabetes. When he was in fifth grade, he ended up in the hospital with what family thought might be a bladder infection. His blood glucose level was reading over 1000, and doctors diagnosed him with type 1 diabetes. Dakota ended up staying in the ICU for about a month after his first diagnosis and would make many visits to the ICU over the next several years.

A little over a year ago, Cedar City Diabetes and Endocrine Clinic moved to a full clinic where they can see more patients and provide better care for the surrounding area.?

“Having a diabetes clinic in our area has been a needed resource for many years. There is a large number of people with diabetes in our community, and with the significant population growth in our area, the demand has increased,” Harmony says of the impact the clinic is having on the community.

The clinic’s work with patients was quickly recognized after opening. They received the 2023 Patient Experience Award of Excellence, which recognizes clinics and programs ranked in the top five percent nationally for patient satisfaction.

As a diabetes clinic, they are able to support other providers in the area to give patients more advanced and focused diabetes care. Harmony credits teamwork for a successful clinic. That teamwork begins at the first interaction with a patient service representative and moves smoothly to meeting the medical assistant, discussing and creating a plan with a nurse practitioner, and then the continued support from the diabetes care and education specialists between visits with the NP.

"Our goal is to ensure the patient is the leader of the team, and we work together to give them the best plan for their diabetes management, leading to overall improved quality of life for each patient,” Harmony says of their commitment to partnering with their patients.

Dakota is just one of many who benefit from the clinic and the caregivers who are dedicated to bringing these much-needed services to the area. The clinic has received an abundance of praise from their patients.

“Garrett Galt, nurse practitioner, is tremendous. He has helped me so much with regulating my diabetes. The staff is so kind. Caden always takes care of scheduling very well. Everyone in the Diabetic Clinic is kind. I feel they all care about me. I am much more than just a Medicare number to this staff,” said one grateful patient.

Another patient praised the staff, “I felt listened to. I was not rushed out of the office. Everything was explained thoroughly, and all my questions answered."

Dakota went through phases where he did not visit with a diabetes educator or take his medication correctly as he battled not only diabetes but the teenage years, understanding his condition and financial difficulties in acquiring diabetic medical supplies. These struggles often led to life-threatening stays at the hospital. At one point during his teenage years, he had 24 ICU stays in a 21-month period. However, he was able to find support each time he turned to Cedar City Diabetes Clinic staff. ?Over the past year, Dakota has been able to find a way to stabilize his sugars and health with frequent check ins with the clinic. Along with helping him save his life numerous times, Dakota says they have taught him several things.

“They have really taught me to advocate for my body. They have been great about helping me figure out the insulin pump and whenever the new biggest thing comes out for diabetes, they are always great about reaching out and saying, ‘hey do you want to come try this,’" says Dakota.

For years, Dakota received this care from dedicated caregivers in small rooms in doctor offices. ?He is grateful to have seen the work that the diabetic educators have been doing from smaller spaces grow to a full-service location. ?

"For the work that they're doing, they deserve all the credit in the world. If I won the lottery tomorrow and all of a sudden became a millionaire overnight, I would fund that place for the rest of my life,” Dakota says as one of the Cedar City Diabetes Clinic’s biggest champions.