APhA Foundation Research Projects
Diabetes Ten City Challenge
The diabetes epidemic is one of the greatest challenges facing our
healthcare system today. Nearly 24 million Americans – 7.8%
of the U.S. population – have diabetes and that number could
increase to 50 million by 2025.
With annual costs of $174 billion, diabetes not only accounts for
more than 15 million work days absent, 120 million work days with
reduced performance and an additional 107 million work days lost due to
unemployment disability attributed to diabetes, but it also multiplies
the potential for heart disease, stroke, blindness, amputations and
kidney failure.
Through the Diabetes Ten
City Challenge (DTCC), sponsored by the APhA Foundation with
support from GlaxoSmithKline,
employers provide employees, dependents and retirees with diabetes a
voluntary health benefit, waive co-pays for diabetes medications and
supplies and help people manage their diabetes on a day to day basis
with the help of a specially-trained pharmacist "coach". The DTCC
is modeled after several successful APhA Foundation programs that tested
the pharmacist-coach model for managing chronic diseases such as asthma,
cardiovascular disease, high cholesterol and osteoporosis. Today,
30 employers and hundreds of local pharmacists in ten cities are working
together to help people manage their diabetes.
Study Results
A new report, "Diabetes
Ten City Challenge: Final economic and clinical results," published
in the May/June 2009 issue of the Journal of the American Pharmacists
Association (JAPhA) documents favorable economic and clinical results
for employers and participants. Employers realized an average annual
savings of almost $1,100 in total health care costs per patient when
compared to projected costs if the DTCC had not been implemented and
participants saved an average of almost $600 per year.
Participants also improved in all of the recognized standards for
diabetes care, including decreases in A1c, LDL cholesterol and blood
pressure; and increases in current flu vaccinations and foot and eye
exams.
With one out of every five dollars in healthcare attributed to
diabetes, the Diabetes Ten City Challenge represents a promising
practice in designing a patient-centered health benefit, one that
improves outcomes for patients and manages costs for everyone
involved.
Diabetes Ten City Challenge Newsline
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