Ol 690 Malden Mills Case Study

Corporate Social Responsibility Report

Novo Nordisk

Executive Summary

The United States of America is on track to become the United States of Diabetes. The epidemic of type 2 diabetes and its warning sign, pre-diabetes, is sweeping across the country . By 2020, an estimated 52 percent of the adult population will have diabetes or pre-diabetes . Yet shockingly, the vast majority—more than 90 percent—of people with pre-diabetes, and about a quarter of people with diabetes, are unaware of their condition .1

This will have major implications for people’s health and life expectancy. It will also make a major contribution to out-of-control U.S. health care costs, placing growing strain on the budgets of families, employers, states and the federal government. Studies estimate that health spending associated with diabetes and pre-diabetes is about $194 billion this year (approximately seven percent of total U.S. health spending). That cost is projected to rise to $500 billion by 2020. 2 The human costs and economic consequences will be substantial. But there is nothing inevitable about this trend. There is now a sufficiently large evidence base about interventions that can make a difference, ranging along the spectrum from lifestyle-related changes to cut obesity, to targeted support for patients with diabetic-related complications . Patients and their care providers will of course be central to that effort.

But making a major impact on the pre-diabetes and diabetes epidemic will also require health plans, integrated delivery systems (IDS) and Medicare and Medicaid to engage in new ways . That will mean health plans acting not only as payers of health benefits, but as ‘care system animators,’ providing underlying data, technology and care management services . It will mean a focus not only on the ‘flow’ of health care consumption, but on managing the population health risk .

So, diabetes is a prism through which to analyze broader changes needed in...