UPMC Division of Endocrinology and Metabolism Receives 2025 T1D Exchange Outstanding Adult Team Award

A team from the UPMC Division of Endocrinology and Metabolism recently won the 2025 T1D Exchange Outstanding Adult Team Award from the T1D Exchange Quality Improvement (QI) Collaborative.

“We won the award for our efforts toward improving diabetes care and equity for adults with type 1 and type 2 diabetes,” says Margaret Zupa, MD, assistant professor of medicine, who with Jason Ng, MD, clinical associate professor of medicine, led the division to join the collaborative in 2022.

The T1DX-QI is a network of more than 60 endocrinology clinics across the nation that care for more than 80,000 people with type 1 diabetes (T1D). These clinics work together to identify areas of unmet need and use data and implementation science to make changes in clinical practice. Established in 2016, the Quality Improvement Collaborative (T1DX-QI) was created by the T1D Exchange in an ambitious effort to refine best practices, enhance the quality of care, and improve outcomes for people living with T1D across the United States.

T1D Exchange CEO Dave Walton, MBA, says the award was given to a well-rounded, highly engaged adult team with diverse team roles, that demonstrates a working knowledge of QI methodologies in a clinical setting.

“This year, we recognize the UPMC team for their active engagement and participation in the Collaborative, including active involvement on the T2D CGM (continuous glucose monitoring) Equity project and the diversity outreach project,” he says.

Mr. Walton noted that the team worked together in a multidisciplinary fashion, with heterogeneous roles and perspectives to support robust QI processes and improvement ideas. He adds that they demonstrated success in improving diabetes technology use in the outpatient clinic, as well as contributing to the T2D CGM Equity Change Package.

“We are grateful for their dedication and responsiveness in this project, which showed an increase in continuous glucose monitoring use for the T2D population at their center by 7%,” says Mr. Walton.

The award was presented on Nov. 12 during the 2025 T1D Exchange Learning Session in Atlanta, Ga. Joseph Roy, RN, DCES, accepted it on the team’s behalf.

“Dr. Zupa and I are grateful to all the staff and colleagues at UPMC who assisted us as we joined the collaborative and who continue to support us in our efforts,” says Dr. Ng. “They are a big reason why we were honored with this award as we look forward to continuously improve our clinical care and quality at UPMC with regard to diabetes management.”