Pharmacy Diabetes Management of a Veteran Population in a Long-Term Care Setting : A Program Evaluation

BACKGROUND: The benefits of an outpatient pharmacy diabetes clinic has been established, with improved patient outcomes and reduced total costs of care. We describe the benefits of an inpatient clinical pharmacy diabetes service within a Department of Veterans Affairs long-term care facility.

METHODS: Patients were referred to the pharmacy diabetes monitoring program between February 2016 and August 2016. During this time, clinical pharmacy specialists managed all pharmacotherapy relating to diabetes care as well as all fingerstick monitoring frequencies and laboratory monitoring to achieve a prespecified, patient-specific A1C goal. The primary endpoints were optimization of blood glucose fingerstick monitoring frequency and cessation of sliding-scale insulin. Secondary end points were achievement of A1C goal, reduction of hypoglycemic/hyperglycemic events, and reduction of total insulin injections per day.

RESULTS: At the time of discharge or end of the observation period, fingerstick frequency had been reduced by a mean of 7.7 fingersticks/patient/week (35.6% total reduction, median 17.5; interquartile range [IQR] 5.5-21; P = 0.002). All eight patients initially prescribed sliding-scale insulin upon referral had their sliding scale stopped by the end of observation. Total injections per day had been reduced from baseline with a mean reduction of 0.55 injections/patient/day (16.5% total reduction; P < 0.05). A1C also showed improvement from baseline, though this was not statistically significant (median 7.75%, IQR 6.8-8.3; P = 0.1). Total hyperglycemic events were reduced from 36 prior to enrollment to 23 post-observation period, while hypoglycemic events decreased from 8 before enrollment to 4 post-observation period.

CONCLUSION: Type 2 diabetes mellitus patients managed by clinical pharmacy specialists at a Veterans Affairs long-term care facility significantly decreased weekly fingerstick blood monitoring frequency, number of insulin injections per day, and ceased sliding-scale insulin use. A1C and hypoglycemic and hyperglycemic events remained stable. Our results are limited because of a small sample size.

Medienart:

E-Artikel

Erscheinungsjahr:

2017

Erschienen:

2017

Enthalten in:

Zur Gesamtaufnahme - volume:32

Enthalten in:

The Consultant pharmacist : the journal of the American Society of Consultant Pharmacists - 32(2017), 11 vom: 01. Nov., Seite 676-681

Sprache:

Englisch

Beteiligte Personen:

Hansen, Forest [VerfasserIn]
Teeples, Hilary [VerfasserIn]
Csati, Jordan [VerfasserIn]
Gillespie, Suzanne M [VerfasserIn]

Links:

Volltext

Themen:

Glycated Hemoglobin A
Hemoglobin A1c protein, human
Insulin
Journal Article

Anmerkungen:

Date Completed 21.12.2017

Date Revised 07.12.2022

published: Print

Citation Status MEDLINE

doi:

10.4140/TCP.n.2017.676

funding:

Förderinstitution / Projekttitel:

PPN (Katalog-ID):

NLM277806550