Prof Peter Colman and Katie Marley and staff from the RMH Department of Diabetes and Endocrinology

The Royal Melbourne Hospital’s Department of Diabetes and Endocrinology has been accredited as a Centre of Excellence by the National Association of Diabetes Centres (NADC).

It joins just four other Australian centres previously recognised for their excellence in the delivery of diabetes care – Monash Health, Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, Canberra Hospital and the Princess Margaret Hospital.

Professor Peter Colman, director of diabetes and endocrinology at the Royal Melbourne Hospital, said the stringent application process alone was a worthwhile learning experience.

“We applied for the Centre of Excellence accreditation because we believed that a number of our activities are unique and that they could be helpful to other sites and improve care generally across NADC member centres,” told the limbic.

“Presenting all our activities to a very thorough peer review audit was very valuable to us. It made us review our processes across the full range of our activities and to formally evaluate and reformulate our long-term plans. No doubt this will improve care across our centre and hospital.”

“The whole team took part in the process and all felt that ownership of the application and outcome was beneficial. It is also serves as a very useful reminder to the hospital of the excellence of our service.”

NADC CEO Natalie Wischer said Centre of Excellence accreditation was the gold standard in diabetes service recognition.

“The Royal Melbourne Hospital has a highly active multidisciplinary team with innovative clinical services. The team demonstrated they are committed to improvement, receptive to change, bold in developing new initiatives and measuring outcomes and their commitment to developing young leaders is to be applauded,” she said.

She added the Royal Melbourne Hospital was particularly outstanding in the areas of training, education and supervision; clinical and basic research; collaboration and engagement; diabetes foot management and diabetes technology.