For his work in quality improvement in type 1 diabetes and exceptional leadership, Francesco Vendrame, M.D., Assistant Professor of Medicine at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine’s Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes, and Metabolism, has been chosen for this year’s T1D Exchange Outstanding Adult Principal Investigator Award. Dr. Vendrame has been a part of the T1D Exchange since 2015 when he began conducting high-quality research as a site investigator in collaboration with other researchers at the UM’s Diabetes Research Institute.
The T1D Exchange serves as the nation’s most trusted provider of diabetes education, research, resources, and services consisting of more than 50 researchers in the T1D Exchange Quality Improvement Network (T1DX-QI). Each year the organization recognizes an outstanding Principal Investigator who has expanded Quality Improvement (QI) capacity and modeled QI methodologies in a clinical setting.
“I was honored to receive this award amidst such an amazing group of people,” Dr. Vendrame said. “It’s exciting and inspiring being part of such a tremendous community that strives to make a meaningful impact in the lives of people with type 1 diabetes.”
The T1DX-QI aims at sharing data and best practices to improve care delivery to people with type 1 diabetes. Dr. Vendrame created a QI team and implemented a system to capture patient data and improve remote data sharing for patients on insulin pump therapy. He also supervised an anonymous data mapping program which will become part of a national database used to guide QI interventions at local and national levels.
“As we move into 2023, we will continue to work on projects aimed at improving the quality of care that we deliver to adult patients with type 1 diabetes,” said Dr. Vendrame. “We plan to expand our team by involving other colleagues at the University of Miami Diabetes Research Institute, and in addition to the grant we have obtained from the T1D Exchange, we will also look for additional funding opportunities.”