APhA Foundation's Diabetes Management Solution Highlighted in Healthcare Leadership Council's Capitol Hill Briefing

PRESS RELEASE

Washington, D.C. — The American Pharmacists Association (APhA) Foundation’s proven diabetes management solution, the Patient Self-Management Credential (PSMC) for Diabetes, was highlighted Monday, May 18 at the Healthcare Leadership Council’s wellness briefing entitled, Controlling Diabetes: Innovations in Therapies and Care. HLC is a coalition of chief executives of the nation’s leading healthcare companies and organizations and advocates consumer-centered healthcare reform. Sanofi US, a member of HLC, invited APhA CEO Thomas Menighan to share information about the PSMC and the pharmacist’s role in diabetes care.

The discussion related to the PSMC at the HLC briefing expands on a meeting that the APhA Foundation hosted earlier this year in which organizations with an interest in diabetes management convened to strategize about how the PSMC could be migrated into new practice environments. Increasing decision makers’ awareness of the PSMC’s impact on diabetes outcomes was a key priority identified at the Foundation’s meeting, which included representatives from the following organizations: American Academy of Diabetes Educators; American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists; American Diabetes Association; American Pharmacists Association; College Diabetes Network; Diabetes Hands Foundation; Diabetes Mine, Diabetes Sisters; Endocrine Society; Thomas Jefferson School of Public Health; The Kroger Co.; and Sanofi US, including representatives of its Corporate Affairs -Partners in Patient Health (PiPH) group.

“We designed the PSMC to create meaningful interactions between patients and providers.” said Benjamin M. Bluml, RPh, APhA Foundation Senior Vice President for Research and Innovation. Bluml continued, “Our relationship with Sanofi US is helping expand PSMC utilization across provider types, increasing access to high quality patient care services, and improving diabetes care coordination by facilitating more actionable communication between physicians, pharmacists, certified diabetes educators, and other providers.”

Sanofi US, a global healthcare leader, that discovers, develops and distributes therapeutic solutions focused on patients' needs, is a key sponsor of the PSMC and sees it as an opportunity to improve patient health and reduce overall healthcare costs. Sanofi US’s PiPH group, which focuses on connecting people, ideas and solutions to focus on critical issues related to advancing patient health, has also been an important advocate of PSMC and APhA Foundation’s efforts to expand its use in new healthcare environments.

Edward Greissing, Vice President, US Corporate Affairs, Global Services at Sanofi US, commented, “Through our PiPH efforts, Sanofi US is pleased to sponsor the PSMC program with the APhA Foundation as they expand the platform to engage patients and incorporate their perspective.”

The PSMC was developed by the APhA Foundation and has been successfully implemented as a central component of the care delivery in the Foundation’s diabetes-focused research projects over the past decade. The PSMC was recently highlighted in the peer-reviewed journal, Population Health Management, as an effective strategy for enabling patients to improve their health by creating enhanced engagement with the healthcare team.

About the Patient Self-Management Credential

The PSMC assesses a patient’s competency in three areas influential to understanding and managing their disease: knowledge, skills, and performance. Based on the assessment, providers are able to easily identify the patient’s current self-management strengths and weaknesses, tailor their education and develop individualized health goals that can be used to measure the patient’s progress over time. The PSMC can also serve as a risk stratification tool based on patient’s achievement levels of beginner, proficient, or advanced, which may help target the expenditure of healthcare resources to patients who need them the most. Achievement levels can be used to incentivize patients or recognize success at becoming effective self-managers of their condition.

Patient credentialing can occur in any healthcare setting and is designed to work across varying patient populations. Although credentialing can be adapted for many chronic disease states, the APhA Foundation has successfully implemented the PSMC as a central component of the care delivery in its diabetes-focused research projects over the past decade. The three projects, the Patient Self-Management Program (PSMP) for Diabetes, the Diabetes Ten City Challenge (DTCC), and Project IMPACT: Diabetes, demonstrate that employing the PSMC as part of the collaborative care process has positive effects on clinical outcomes and healthcare costs.