Cardinal Serves up More Diabetes Education Tools for Pharmacies

12/04/2014

December 2, 2014 – DUBLIN, Ohio – Cardinal Health Inc. has enhanced its Diabetes Specialized Care Center with new education and training tools to help community pharmacists empower patients with diabetes to better understand the disease and better manage their overall health.

Cardinal said Tuesday that community pharmacies using the Diabetes Specialized Care Center can now access Conversation Map tools from Healthy Interactions. The visual, hands-on educational materials are designed to foster small-group, interactive patient, caregiver and staff learning and engagement — providing everything a 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, as well as stay connected to their educator and peers. In addition, My Digital Health Coach, an online health coaching tool, creates personalized health and wellness action plans for managing diabetes based on each patient's goals and health conditions.

"Twenty-nine million Americans live with diabetes, and 86 million have prediabetes. 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," Steve Light, vice president of consumer health at Cardinal Health, said in a statement.

Citing Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) data, Light noted that diabetes cost the health care industry more than $245 billion last year.

"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," he added.

Article published in Chain Drug Review on 12/2/14