Cost-Effectiveness of Reducing Glycaemic Episodes Through Community Pharmacy Management of Patients with Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus

Accessibility, availability and frequent public contact place community pharmacists in an ideal position to provide medically necessary, intensive health education and preventive health services to diabetes patients, thus reducing physician burden. We assessed the cost-effectiveness of reducing glycaemic episodes in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus through a pharmacist-led Diabetes Management Education Program (DMEP) compared to standard care. We recruited eight metropolitan community pharmacies in Perth, Western Australia for the study. We paired them based on geographical location and the socioeconomic status of the population served, and then randomly selected one pharmacy in each pair to be in the intervention group, with the other assigned to the control group. We conducted an incremental cost-effectiveness analysis to compare the costs and effectiveness of DMEP with standard pharmacy care. Cost per patient of implementing DMEP was AU$394 (US$356) for the 6-month intervention period. Significantly greater reductions in number of hyperglycaemic and hypoglycaemic episodes occurred in the intervention relative to the control group [OR 0.34 (95 % CI 0.22, 0.52), p = 0.001; OR 0.54 (95 % CI 0.34, 0.86), p = 0.009], respectively, with a net reduction of 1.86 days with glycaemic episodes per patient per month. The cost-effectiveness of DMEP relative to standard pharmacy care was AU$43 (US$39) per day of glycaemic symptoms avoided. Patients with type 2 diabetes in three surveys were willing to pay an average of 1.9 times that amount to avoid a hypoglycaemic day. We conclude that DMEP decreased days with glycaemic symptoms at a reasonable cost. If a larger-scale replication study confirms these findings, widespread adoption of this approach would improve diabetes health without burdening general practitioners

Does the presence of a pharmacist in primary care clinics improve diabetes medication adherence?

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Although oral hypoglycemic agents (OHAs) are an essential element of therapy for the management of type 2 diabetes, OHA adherence is often suboptimal. Pharmacists are increasingly being integrated into primary care as part of the move towards a patient-centered medical home and may have a positive influence on medication use. We examined whether the presence of pharmacists in primary care clinics was associated with higher OHA adherence.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>This retrospective cohort study analyzed 280,603 diabetes patients in 196 primary care clinics within the Veterans Affairs healthcare system. Pharmacists presence, number of pharmacist full-time equivalents (FTEs), and the degree to which pharmacy services are perceived as a bottleneck in each clinic were obtained from the 2007 VA Clinical Practice Organizational Survey—Primary Care Director Module. Patient-level adherence to OHAs using medication possession ratios (MPRs) were constructed using refill data from administrative pharmacy databases after adjusting for patient characteristics. Clinic-level OHA adherence was measured as the proportion of patients with MPR >= 80%. We analyzed associations between pharmacy measures and clinic-level adherence using linear regression.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We found no significant association between pharmacist presence and clinic-level OHA adherence. However, adherence was lower in clinics where pharmacy services were perceived as a bottleneck.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Pharmacist presence, regardless of the amount of FTE, was not associated with OHA medication adherence in primary care clinics. The exact role of pharmacists in clinics needs closer examination in order to determine how to most effectively use these resources to improve patient-centered outcomes including medication adherence.</p