Pharmacist Intervention Improves Clinical Outcomes in Patients with Diabetes

Pharmacists’ intervention results in positive clinical outcomes, especially reduction in hemoglobin A_1C (HbA_1C) percentages, forpatients with diabetes. This is according to a poster presented at the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists 2022 Midyear Clinical Meeting, held December 4 to 8 in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Through a literature review, researchers sought to identifycommunity or outpatient-based pharmacies that implemented diabetes self-management education (DSME) or diabetes prevention programs (DPP) as an enhanced service for patients, and to identify factors that lead to the successful implementation in community pharmacies.Services like these have positive impacts on patients with diabetes and pre-diabetes. Unfortunately, there are a handful of barriers that prevent community pharmacies from implementing them.

Researchers examined existing literature about community or outpatient pharmacy based DSME and DPPs. Terms like “community pharmacy,” “pharmacist,” “DSME,” and “DPP” were used in combination of the search.

Twenty-one articles were deemed relevant for further review, but only 14 were included in the researchers’ analysis. The articles included themes like clinical patient outcomes, cost savings, patient satisfaction, and patient education.

Thirteen articles focused on clinical patient outcomes like HbA_1C, cardiovascular risk, and mental health improvement. Seven of these articles found significant patient improvement in HbA_1C parentage, while 1 article showed no difference between intervention and control groups.

Two articles that were focused on mental health while managing diabetes found significant improvement in mental health scores when pharmacists were involved in patients’ care. One article even found an overwhelming increase in patient satisfaction when a pharmacist intervened.

“Pharmacists may have the potential to additionally reduce cardiovascular risk, improve mental health, decrease patient costs, and increase patient understanding when intervening with patients who have diabetes,” the researchers concluded.“ A general theme noticed in this review was that pharmacists who worked in collaboration with an interprofessional team demonstrated more robust success in improving patient outcomes as compared to those working without formal collaboration,” researchers concluded.

Reference

1. Harper K, Tice-Harris M, Hall C, Kirby J. The impact of outpatient or community pharmacy interventions in patients with diabetes or pre-diabetes: a review of current evidence. Presented at: American Society of Health-System Pharmacists 2022 Midyear Clinical Meeting and Exhibition; December 4-8, 2022, Las Vegas, NV. Poster 7-015.