DUBLIN, Ohio — Cardinal Health on Tuesday announced an enhancement to its Diabetes Specialized Care Center, which offers an array of training and educational tools, marketing support and other resources to help community pharmacists position themselves as local destinations for diabetes care. The enhancements include new education and training tools to help community pharmacists empower patients with diabetes to better understand the disease and better manage their overall health.
“[As many as] 29 million Americans live with diabetes, and 86 million have prediabetes,” said Steve Light, VP consumer health for Cardinal Health. “As the diabetes population continues to grow, we are committed to arming community pharmacists with innovative new tools to help patients make the kind of meaningful behavior changes that can have a significant impact on their health outcomes.”
Community pharmacies that use the company’s Diabetes Specialized Care Center can now access Conversation Map tools from Healthy Interactions. Conversation Maps are visual, hands-on educational materials that help foster small group, interactive patient, caregiver and staff learning and engagement. This turnkey solution provides everything a community pharmacy needs to market and deliver billable diabetes education to patients.
Enhancements also include ongoing online support to help patients track their progress and goals, and stay connected to their educator and peers. My Digital Health Coach, an online health coaching tool, creates personalized health-and-wellness action plans for managing diabetes, based on each patient’s unique goals and health conditions.
“Diabetes is a disease that cost the healthcare industry more than $245 billion last year alone,” Light said. “These innovative new tools help community pharmacists build deeper, more loyal relationships with their patients, with the ultimate goal of driving patient engagement, improving outcomes and reducing the costs of combating this disease.”