UTRGV receives $30M grant to combat diabetes in Valley

HARLINGEN — Through a $30 million dollar grant from the Valley Baptist Legacy Foundation, the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley is set to establish and build the UTRGV Diabetes Center of Excellence (UTRGV DCE), a much needed diabetes management and limb preservation clinic.

In a press conference Monday at the UTRGV Institute of Neuroscience, university President Guy Bailey announced the grant and how the UTRGV DCE will address the high rates of diabetes and its complications, including amputations in the Valley.

“Not only does it shorten lives, it often involves the removal of limbs,” Bailey said. “We have two amputations a day in the Rio Grande Valley, two major amputations a day … I want you to think about multiplying two by the number of days in the year. Multiply that by five, ten years… That is a major blow to families in the Valley, to individuals, to the economic health of the Valley itself. If we can solve that one problem, think about the impact we’re going to have.”

The UTRGV DCE has two aspects to the facility: diabetes management and the limb preservation clinic.

The diabetes management program is designed to address diabetes in the Valley through collaborative disease management, research and education.

UTRGV DCE expects a multi-disciplinary team of professionals with an important focus on early detection and prevention. The center will recruit and train diabetologists, behavioral health specialists, endocrinologists, podiatrists, researchers and community health workers to expand access to healthcare.

The center will also be in collaboration with the UTRGV School of Medicine, School of Podiatric Medicine, School of Nursing, College of Health Professions, School of Social Work and School of Nursing.

The limb preservation clinic also focuses on early detection, intervention and wound care. The clinic in collaboration with the UTRGV School of Podiatric Medicine will provide specialized limb preservation services to address the urgent need for amputation prevention.

There were 3,863 diabetic major amputations in the Rio Grande Valley from 2011-2016, according to the Texas Department of State Health Services.

The clinic will be one of only two in the state with the other being a limb salvage clinic at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas.

“Our (UTRGV School of Podiatric Medicine) Dean, Javier La Fontaine, came from that center, so we have inside information about how that works,” Bailey said.

The Valley Baptist Legacy Foundation has awarded UTRGV $90 million since 2015.

Executive director of the foundation Judy Quisenberry attended the press conference and said diabetes has been one of the foundation’s biggest concerns since it began funding in 2014.

The clinical ability to help the community right away combined with research will benefit the community, Quisenberry said.

“Because it’s a university and a medical school, I think the education and awareness (of diabetes) will start to be really big across county lines,” she said. “Everybody knows ‘Well, I should eat better.’ … But when you are in a poverty area, eating healthy may be a hard thing to do. Perhaps getting the most quantity of food for your family is the goal versus necessarily quality … We’ve got a lot of hurdles economically that I think we’re going to have to really look at as well.”

The announcement came in an empty field of grass between the UTRGV Institute of Neuroscience and the UTRGV Harlingen Collegiate High where the facility will be built.

“We see the university growing, thriving and developing,” Bailey said. “But also we know that UTRGV … it’s a part of the economic engine of the Rio Grande Valley. And as we build and develop facilities like these, we know that we’re having an economic impact as well.”