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Diabetes in Pregnancy: Joint Care Grants

These grants aim to establish team-based prenatal care at health care centers throughout South Carolina for pregnant women with diabetes.

Grant Purpose

This grant opportunity aims to reduce the often impractical and unrealistic number of clinic visits for women with diabetes during pregnancy, to integrate care, and to improve communication with the patient and between providers.

BlueCross BlueShield of South Carolina has launched a new initiative, Diabetes Free SC, to mitigate the effects of diabetes statewide. A core mission of Diabetes Free SC is to improve pregnancy outcomes in women with diabetes. The BlueCross BlueShield of South Carolina Foundation invites eligible organizations to submit proposals to establish team-based prenatal care at centers throughout South Carolina for pregnant women with diabetes. Once in place, this team-based care should be extended, using telemedicine, to surrounding rural communities.

The purpose of this program is to support the establishment of Joint Maternal-Fetal Medicine-Obstetric-Endocrine Clinics for Women with Diabetes in Pregnancy (Diabetes in Pregnancy: Joint Care Grants) in South Carolina population centers, then to establish telemedicine outreach from each Joint Care Clinic to its surrounding rural and/or underserved regions.

Proposals should address the following aims:

1. To establish or develop a Joint Care Clinic in a population center of South Carolina.  The Clinic will provide integrated, team-based multidisciplinary and ‘state of the art’ care to pregnant women with diabetes.

  • A minimum essential component of each Joint Care Clinic is the physical presence (at the same place and time) of obstetrician(s) trained in maternal-fetal medicine and endocrinologist(s).   In addition, Joint Care Clinics should incorporate convenient, on-site access to nutritionists, psychiatrists, diabetes educators, patient navigators and community health workers. Plans to provide adequate prenatal ophthalmologic and dental care should be included.
  • Joint Care Clinics will utilize the latest technologies to assist optimal blood sugar control throughout pregnancy. These will enable rapid down-loading glycemic data from glucometers and CGM devices, use of insulin pumps, and cloud-based technologies.
  • Plans should be included to ensure that care is culturally appropriate.

2. To implement a telemedicine outreach program to surrounding rural areas once the Joint Care team is established (a) to reduce the number of physical visits for patients and (b) to provide team-based, coordinated care to women in surrounding rural and/or underserved communities.

Outcome measures will be developed and standardized across all Joint Care Clinics supported by Diabetes Free SC. Once these outcomes are agreed among participants, compliance in collecting and reporting these data will be mandatory. A Data Coordinating Center will be established to facilitate data collection and analysis.

Grant Eligibility

Amount: Up to $1,500,000
Duration:  3 years
Start Date: June 2020
Application Due: March 25, 2020 by 5:00PM

To be eligible for grant funding, you must be a nonprofit organization that has a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status as determined by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS); or must be a governmental, educational or research institution with tax-exempt status.   

Program or research must be conducted in the state of South Carolina

Grant funds must be used for direct expenses tied to project activities. No grant funds can be used for indirect expenses. Funding can be used for, but is not limited to:

  • Buy-down of clinical provider time (including physicians) to enable participation in Joint Care Clinic and telemedicine outreach programs
  • Provision of technologic support for clinic (to enable access to patient devices) and for patients (meters, CGM, pumps)
  • Provision of technologic support for telemedicine
  • Provision of insulin

Application

Applications for the Spring Cycle are currently open and are due on March 25, 2020 by 5:00PM.

The Foundation will not be able to provide feedback prior to proposal submission and will not provide feedback for submitted proposals that do not meet the above criteria to ensure timeliness and responsiveness of funds awarded.

A three-year project budget must be submitted with your application. Please access the project budget template here.

Application Portal 

Review and Approval

The Foundation Board reviews the applications approximately eight weeks after the application due date. We will advise you of your application's status following the board review.

For questions about the Diabetes in Pregnancy: Joint Clinic Grant opportunity, please contact Dr. Timothy Lyons at (803) 264-2910 or t.lyons@bcbssc.com

For questions specific to the grant application portal, please contact Julie Miller at (803) 264-4669.