Document Type
Article
Date of Original Version
4-19-2018
Department
Pharmacy Practice
Abstract
Objectives
The effectiveness and costs associated with addition of pharmacist-led group medical visits to standard care for patients with Type-2 Diabetes Mellitus (T2DM) is unknown.
Methods
Randomized-controlled-trial in three US Veteran Health Administration (VHA) Hospitals, where 250 patients with T2DM, HbA1c >7% and either hypertension, active smoking or hyperlipidemia were randomized to either (1) addition of pharmacist-led group-medical-visits or (2) standard care alone for 13 months. Group (4–6 patients) visits consisted of 2-hour, education and comprehensive medication management sessions once weekly for 4 weeks, followed by quarterly visits. Change from baseline in cardiovascular risk estimated by the UKPDS-risk-score, health-related quality-of-life (SF36v) and institutional healthcare costs were compared between study arms.
Results
After 13 months, both groups had similar and significant improvements from baseline in UKPDS-risk-score (-0.02 ±0.09 and -0.04 ±0.09, group visit and standard care respectively, adjusted p
Conclusions
Addition of pharmacist-led group medical visits in T2DM achieved similar improvements from baseline in cardiovascular risk factors than usual care, but with reduction in the healthcare costs in the group visit arm 13 months after completion compared to the steady rise in cost for the usual care arm.
Citation/Publisher Attribution
Wu W-C, Taveira TH, Jeffery S, Jiang L, Tokuda L, Musial J, et al. (2018) Costs and effectiveness of pharmacist-led group medical visits for type-2 diabetes: A multi-center randomized controlled trial. PLoS ONE 13(4): e0195898. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0195898
Available at: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0195898
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