Q&A: Pharmacists Can Help Raise Awareness About CGMs

The prevalence of diabetes in the United States continues to grow and research estimates that 54.9 million Americans will have the condition by 2030. This highlights the critical need for both better prevention measures and disease management options such as continuous glucose monitors (CGM). These devices, which have quickly become the standard of care for patients with diabetes, have shown to significantly improve glycemic control.

Q&A: Pharmacists Can Help Raise Awareness About CGMs / Pixel-Shot - stock.adobe.com

Drug Topics sat down with Heather Folz, PharmD, BCACP, associate professor of pharmacy practice at Notre Dame of Maryland University and an ambulatory care clinical pharmacist at MedStar Franklin Square Medical Center, and Christina H. Sherrill, PharmD, BCACP, BC-ADM, associate professor at UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy, to talk about challenges pharmacists might face when integrating CGM counseling into their practice, and how pharmacists can play a role in raising public awareness about CGM technology and its benefits for diabetes management.

READ MORE: Hands-On CGM Training Helps Student Pharmacists Prepare for Career

Drug Topics: What challenges might pharmacists face when integrating CGM counseling into their practice?

Christina H. Sherrill, PharmD, BCACP, BC-ADM: The biggest challenges to implementing CGM in practice are money, time and adequate training. Regarding money, billing and reimbursement is always a challenge that comes up for pharmacists trying to practice at the top of their license and provide these clinical services to our patients. That's a whole talk in and of itself, but some of the good news is that depending on state regulation, some pharmacists, through collaborative practice agreements, are able to provide CGM services and are able to bill for these services, as well. It just depends on the legislation. But these can be pretty lucrative services that pharmacists can provide.

Regarding time, thinking about the community pharmacy setting and really healthcare in general, oftentimes it's very hectic, lots of different competing priorities. Time can definitely be a challenge. Incorporating something that is a new technology. It could take some time to educate a patient on how to use it properly, versus just giving them the device and hoping that they read the instruction manual and understand how everything works. Ideally, you take the time to talk to them about it, so you can make sure they fully understand everything. It can be really difficult to fit that into your workflow, especially if you, as a clinician, aren't that familiar with the device.

That kind of leads into making sure that you have adequate training to be able to provide these services, and that's where we want to come into play as faculty members and clinicians, to be able to educate our students at their level. Then students who are on rotation and resident, kind of continuing to educate folks to be able to provide these services. Our hope is that by starting early, we can incorporate these topics into the pharmacy curriculum and try to help address this challenge with these new technologies.

Drug Topics: How can pharmacists play a role in raising public awareness about CGM technology and its benefits for diabetes management?

Heather Folz, PharmD, BCACP: Pharmacists have huge potential, and already are raising a lot of public awareness about this. I think Christy and I, both in our clinical practice, do a lot of education to medical residents and prescribers to help them be more comfortable with CGM. I think a lot of this starts in pharmacy education, making sure that our students are confident and knowledgeable on CGM. I think pharmacists probably aren't going to advocate for something that they're not fully comfortable with or excited about, so trying to kind of instill that early in the didactic setting.

I think it’s a huge area for pharmacists in different settings. Christine and I both work in more of an ambulatory care setting, so a doctor's office setting where we work with the prescribers directly. But this could also be a huge avenue for community pharmacists. They're at the front lines filling prescriptions. They see patients that are picking up insulin, for example, and they might be interested in pursuing CGM and just knowing that it could be a potential option for them.

In the past year, we've had a number of CGM devices that have gone over the counter, so no longer necessarily needing prescriptions for them. So again, a huge role for pharmacists, as we do a lot with over the counter products for our patients. I think it’s a huge opportunity for pharmacists to really advocate to help our patients get the technology that can really help them with taking control over their health.

READ MORE: Diabetes Resource Center

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References

1. Rowley WR, Bezold C, Arikan Y, et al. Diabetes 2030: Insights from Yesterday, Today, and Future Trends. Popul Health Manag. 2017 Feb;20(1):6-12. doi: 10.1089/pop.2015.0181. Epub 2016 Apr 28. PMID: 27124621; PMCID: PMC5278808.