I'm Dr. John Iskander; welcome to CDC Beyond the Data.
I'm here today with Dr. Laurie Hall, Program Consultant
with the Division of Diabetes Translation at CDC.
Dr. Hall, we learned today at Grand Rounds
about how pharmacists can improve our healthcare system
in the 21st century.
What are some of the aspects of pharmacy and pharmacists
that allow them to play that role?
Sure John, one thing is the accessibility of pharmacists.
They are approximately 67,000 pharmacists working in the US,
and they're generally woven within the fabric
of each community whether be an urban or a rural setting.
Also, pharmacists are among some
of the most trusted professionals.
Yet, they seem to be underutilized when you look
at how they are trained and the experience
that they bring to health care.
So beyond the functions that most
of our audience will be familiar with, of dispensing medications,
what are some of the more advanced roles
that pharmacists can play in improving health care?
Yes. So, as you said, there's so much more to pharmacy
and what pharmacists are doing
than just dispensing medications.
We find pharmacists working to prevent
and also control various chronic diseases such as diabetes,
heart disease, asthma,
congestive heart failure, among others.
Pharmacists are also helping manage patients with HIV
and giving immunizations.
All of these diseases are very complex and many are hinged
on taking medications as the cornerstone of treatment.
So, it makes sense that a medication expert
such as a pharmacist is involved in the process
of treating these patients.
You know, it certainly does
with people taking multiple medications often
for not just one, but multiple chronic conditions.
So, what have we learned about the benefits
of having pharmacists involved in health care
in these more enhanced roles?
One of the benefits is increasing the quality
of healthcare.
An example that comes to mind is when patients are hospitalized
for one of their conditions, and then they're discharged,
their medication regimen could look completely different.
And, so a pharmacist that's assigned
to reconcile the medication and also make sure
that the patient is completely aware of their new list
of medications, increases the quality
and also prevents the chances
that an adverse event could occur
that would then re-hospitalize them.
We also see that investing in pharmacists and engaging
in pharmacists can increase the patients' control
of their disorder.
A growing number of evidence shows that patients A1C levels
which is a measure of long term blood glucose control decrease
when a pharmacists is involved in therapy, as well as markers
like lowered hypertension and high blood pressure,
lower cholesterol and LDL which is the bad cholesterol.
So, those quality measures as well
as the improved patient outcomes are two huge benefits.
And then we also talk about the cost benefits
in reducing health care costs when a pharmacist is involved.
The return on investment on average is four to one.
In other words, for every dollar invested you save four dollars
whenever a pharmacist is involved.
And some evidence even shows this can be
as high as twelve to one.
So those are a number of benefits
of working with pharmacists.
So, potential better healthcare outcomes,
potential economic benefits from really using pharmacists,
as you said during the session, as the medication expert
on the healthcare team.
Now, one thing I wasn't aware before today's session was
that CDC has a number of resources available for people
who want to learn more, for community's that want
to better engage with pharmacists.
Can you tell us a little bit about those
and where people can access those?
Yeah, absolutely.
So, all of CDCs tools are housed online.
One of the useful ones is a program guide for public health
and the intended audiences there are state health departments
because they work on system level changes and approaches.
And that guide has influenced state health departments
to understand more about the scope of practice of pharmacists
and encourage them to help scale and expand programs
that utilize pharmacists,
such as medication therapy management,
and just overall comprehensive medication services.
Another tool that the division of heart disease
and stroke prevention issued was a tool kit
on collaborative practice agreements.
And they actually cater the tool kit to four different audiences,
each with a stake in having pharmacists work
in that collaborative practice setting.
So, depending on whether you're a healthcare provider,
a law maker or a healthcare administrator,
or pharmacists themselves, they cater the tools
within that tool kit to the audience.
And then lastly, as part of the Million Hearts campaign,
there's a wonderful resource called, "Team Up,
Pressure Down", and that targets community pharmacists themselves
that are working with their patients
to help reduce hypertension, and prevent stroke and heart attack
and other cardiovascular risk factors.
So, really, a number of different resources for a number
of different audiences.
Thank you very much, Dr. Hall.
[Dr. Hall] Thank you.
[Dr. Iskandar] Please join us next month
for another segment of Beyond the Data.