Q&A: CGMs Empower Patients to Take Control of Diabetes Care | APhA 2025
The integration of CGM into pharmacy practice represents a significant opportunity for pharmacists to provide enhanced patient care.
Continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) devices are revolutionizing diabetes management, offering patients unprecedented insights into their daily health patterns. As health care evolves, pharmacists are emerging as key players in helping patients navigate and maximize the potential of these advanced technologies, transforming how diabetes is monitored and managed, according to Lindsey Miller, PharmD, clinical assistant professor of pharmacy practice at the University of Mississippi.
The integration of CGMs into pharmacy practice represents a significant opportunity for pharmacists to provide enhanced patient care. By offering comprehensive education, technical support, and collaborative health care approaches, pharmacists can help patients overcome access barriers, understand complex device technologies, and ultimately improve their diabetes management strategies. This innovative approach not only empowers patients with real-time health information but also positions pharmacists as critical partners in personalized diabetes care.
The integration of CGM into pharmacy practice represents a significant opportunity for pharmacists to provide enhanced patient care. | Image Credit: Pixel-Shot | stock.adobe.com
Drug Topics: How can pharmacists integrate CGM education and training into their existing pharmacy workflow?
Lindsey Miller, PharmD: So there's a lot of opportunity for pharmacists to get CGM education and services into their workflow. I think some of that depends on what setting you're in and kind of knowing what direction to go, but there is data that shows how much it helps patients with diabetes to improve their quality of life, as well as the management of their diabetes. So, no matter what practice setting you're in, you probably encounter some patients with diabetes, and so whether it be through recommending to providers to get them on CGM devices, just to help them be empowered to make decisions throughout their day when it comes to what they're eating and what they're doing, and then the patients can really see that real-time information. It kind of changes their outlook, and they really feel empowered to have a say in the management of their condition or in the community setting, which is where I practice, where we're dispensing these products all the time. So, taking that extra time to have a conversation with the patient to make sure that they understand the tool that they have and are really able to utilize it full to the effect that it can be.
Drug Topics: How can pharmacists utilize patient education programs to ensure patients understand how to use their CGM devices effectively?
Miller: Speaking again, from the community setting since that's where I am, I think that it's really important to take the time, especially the first time that you're dispensing a CGM device for a patient, to actually sit down and go through with them the application process to help them get the device on the back of their arm or whichever site it is. Also, if they're using a reader device, if they're using an app on their phone, helping them set that up and walking through the different functions that exist there. I think just taking the extra time there on the front-end, particularly on that first field, but don't just assume that everything is good after that as well. So continue to have those touch points and conversations with them; maybe even help them look at the data because these devices give us so much information that it could be overwhelming to a patient as well, and if you're trained and educated on what to do with that information, taking the time to go through that with the patient and to help them make use of all this information for the best possible [outcome].
Drug Topics: What are some common barriers to patient access to CGM devices, and how can pharmacists address them?
Miller: There are some access to barriers, usually in the cost space; if your insurance doesn't cover it, which is possible for some patients with diabetes depending on the health plan that they have, it may require them to be on an insulin regimen or to be experiencing hypoglycemia episodes, and so just helping them to navigate whether or not they're a candidate for CGM and, if they are interested, maybe helping them go through the process with their provider. If there is some type of patient assistance that could be just helping them navigate that, it can be an overwhelming process, but there are also now OTC options available, and so just directing patients towards those. They're not available in the pharmacy as of the time I'm recording this, but they are available on their websites from what I've known.
Drug Topics: How can pharmacists address concerns about the cost of CGM devices and associated supplies?
Miller: So one option is that maybe it's not something that has to be worn all of the time; if cost is prohibitive for patients to use it all day, every day, every month. While that would obviously be our preferred for these devices that give us such wonderful information, sometimes if you can just get a couple of weeks of data here and there, that can really still tell you a lot of information about the patient's day-to-day habits and help you identify patterns that will then give you good places to make some recommendations for that patient.
Drug Topics: How can pharmacists overcome challenges related to patient education and technology literacy?
Miller: So one way, I think, is just being really informed yourself on CGM devices and the technology that goes with them, compatibility with pumps, because that can be really hard for even us to navigate. So you can imagine it could be a lot more difficult for others, and so the more that you are educated and know about that as the pharmacist, I think it makes you so much more well equipped to help patients navigate that process, and similar to earlier, just talking about taking the time to sit down and walk through the hands-on technology with them to make sure and verify their understanding.
Drug Topics: How can pharmacists work with health care professionals to provide education and support for CGM users?
Miller: I think there's a lot of ways in which we could plug in there. I know that I have other colleagues that work with CGMs frequently and have even identified patients at the community pharmacy setting who are candidates for CGM or could really benefit based off information that they get in their day-to-day patient conversations and then make that recommendation to their primary care provider, to their endocrinologist, if they're not already on a CGM device, and then maybe you can collaborate and try to get that device to the patient, and so I think that's a great way to intervene and help get access to CGM for more patients. I also think you can work with those providers, too, to provide some monitoring in between their visits. So if you have a program at your pharmacy or wherever it is that you practice where you can do some remote monitoring and do some therapeutic recommendations to help manage that patient's diabetes, I think that's a great option for pharmacists to plug in and add some elevated patient care.
Drug Topics: How can pharmacists demonstrate the value of CGM services to payers and health care systems?
Miller: I think there have been a lot of studies that have been published that I think are helping to tell the story of the value of CGMa, either in cost savings because we always like to look at a financial outcome but also looking at the quality measures that we see with patients in their A1c reduction and their quality of life too. So even just some of that anecdotal information that we hear from patients. I know I've personally had so many patients who have been so excited to come in and show me, like, show their app on their phone when a reading turns green and says, "I'm able to watch this. I took a screenshot of this, and I sent it to my kids, and they're so proud of me. Actually, I'll look at this and be like, Oh, maybe I don't need that donut" or whatever it is. So they're just feeling so much more involved and empowered to make those decisions throughout their day-to-day, and then I think in the long term, on more the health care metric side of things, we see that in their A1c reduction, we see that in maybe being able to de-escalate off of insulin; maybe we see that in some weight loss and potential future ASCVD risk reduction; there's a lot of things that we can see. So I think one place pharmacists can plug in is, if you making these interventions, track that data, and let's see if we can get more of those stories out there to help tell the story.
Drug Topics: Is there anything else you would like to add?
Miller: One resource that APhA [American Pharmacists Association] just came out with that I think it's a great option for pharmacists who want to learn more is a CGM certificate training program that just offered the live session for the first time here this weekend. But 12 hours total, get CE credit and that certificate from there that really dives in depth into the CGM devices, how to apply that to patient care, and then also getting into workflow and billing and ways to get those services into where you are practicing.
