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APhA foundation's diabetes Ten City Challenge invites ten U.S. cities to better manage diabetes, save on health care costs

Pittsburgh Business Group on Health and Northwest Georgia Healthcare Partnership first employer groups selected to participate

 

WASHINGTON, D.C., October 25 – The American Pharmacists Association (APhA) Foundation announced today that the Pittsburgh Business Group on Health and the Northwest Georgia Healthcare Partnership are the first employer groups selected to participate in the “Diabetes Ten City Challenge™,” an innovative new employer-based diabetes management program.

“The Diabetes Ten City Challenge™ is inviting employer groups in 10 communities to establish a voluntary health benefit for employees and dependents that provides employee incentives and helps people manage diabetes with support from pharmacists, physicians and diabetes educators,”according to APhA Foundation CEO and Executive Director William Ellis.

The Diabetes Ten City Challenge™, sponsored by the APhA Foundation with support and funding from GlaxoSmithKline, is modeled after the highly successful Asheville Project in North Carolina, a diabetes management program proven to improve overall health, reduce absenteeism, shorten hospital stays and reduce health care costs. The Asheville Project is now in its ninth year and has grown from 47 participants at two employers to more than 1,000 participants at five organizations.

“Results of the Asheville Project showed that people are more likely to take prescribed medications and track their condition with blood glucose, blood pressure and cholesterol checks,and regular eye and foot exams. As a result, their employers saved between $1,622 and $3,356 per participant annually, based on reduced emergency room visits and fewer diabetes-related hospitalizations,” said APhA Foundation Senior Director of Medication Adherence Programs Dan Garrett.

“The APhA Foundation is challenging 10 communities to transform the health care system, just as it was transformed in Asheville,” Ellis said. “By investing in aligned incentives and helping people manage their conditions, the Diabetes Ten City Challenge™ shows how health care can be an investment in well-being rather than an expense for sickness.”

“Proof of the potential is clear because every organization that has implemented a program based on the Asheville Project is either continuing or expanding it,” said John Miall, a member of the Diabetes Ten City Challenge™ Advisory Committee and retired risk manager for the City of Asheville, who was instrumental in creating and implementing the Asheville Project. “We estimate that more than 3,000 people with diabetes already benefit in at least 10 states. If Asheville is any indicator, the program will grow exponentially once it is implemented through the APhA Foundation’s program,” Miall added.

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APhA FOUNDATION’S DIABETES TEN CITY CHALLENGE™

INVITES TEN U.S. CITIES TO BETTER MANAGE DIABETES

Pittsburgh Business Group on Health and Northwest Georgia Healthcare Partnership Selected

 

“After hearing of the results from the City of Asheville, our members were anxious to explore how a similar program could be implemented in Pittsburgh,” said Christine Whipple, executive director of the Pittsburgh Business Group on Health, a coalition representing 64 organizations and more than a million insured employees, dependents and retirees. “We are excited to be part of the Diabetes Ten City Challenge™and to use the APhA Foundation’s proven structure and process for diabetes care in our LivingMyLife  Self Management Program™, an initiative that seeks a better way to accomplish more and achieve better outcomes through the health care team.”

“It is an absolute dream come true to have a program with proven success that our employers can participate in as a community,” said the Northwest Georgia Healthcare Partnership Executive Director Nancy Kennedy. The non-profit collaborative of health care providers, government and industry representatives was founded in 1992 to address health care issues in the area known as the “Carpet Capital of the World.” Through the Partnership, four employers based in Dalton, Georgia,will participate in the first year of the Diabetes Ten City Challenge™, including city and county government, the local utility and the region’s health care system.

Pilot Demonstrates Multiple Advantages

 

The Northwest Georgia group was inspired by dramatic results at Mohawk Industries, a major local employer that piloted the APhA Foundation’s diabetes management program at its Dublin, Georgia manufacturing plant. Seventy of the plant’s 700 employees are now in the program,and the company is looking at ways to involve more of its 35,000 employees.

“I am sold on this program. It’s incredible,” said Mohawk Industries Benefits Director Judy Pair, who also serves on the board of directors of the Northwest Georgia Healthcare Partnership. “Our participants’ health and quality of life are greatly improved, and we are paying less than half of the total medical dollars we paid for the same people two years ago.”

Pair said since Mohawk started the program in 2003, hospitalizations have been cut in half for the original participants, whose doctor-office visits increased as they learned how to better manage diabetes. “Seeing their physicians regularly for routine care and lab work helped people stay well and out of the hospital,” she added. “Within a year, their absenteeism from work also dropped to less than half the days missed previously and continued at that level.”

“The whole key is the education and the relationship people build with the pharmacist they meet on a regular basis,” Pair explained. “Employees are so appreciative of the pharmacist’s time to explain things they did not know, and they work more closely with their doctors as a result. They had heard stories of going on dialysis and of amputations, but no one had taken the time to tell them that these things don’t have to happen.”

 

Diabetes in the  United States

 

More than 18 million Americans have diabetes (6.3 percent of the population), and the number of people diagnosed with diabetes has more than doubled in the last 20 years. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that 63 percent (almost two-thirds) of people diagnosed with diabetes are not achieving control of the disease. The U.S. spends $13,242 on each patient with diabetes, compared with $2,560 per person for people who do not have diabetes.

“Diabetes costs more than $132 billion each year in direct medical costs and indirect economic costs including disability, missed work and premature death, and it leads to serious issues including heart disease, kidney failure and blindness,” said former U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy G. Thompson, an honorary member of the Diabetes Ten City Challenge™ Advisory Committee.

“Managing chronic conditions such as diabetes needs to be a top priority in our country, and the Diabetes Ten City Challenge™  is a good way for employers to help people achieve that important goal,” Thompson added.

The APhA Foundation will provide the resources and project management tools for the new initiative and support employers in setting up their programs. The Foundation also will guide local pharmacists as they work with physicians, diabetes educators and other community resources to establish the program and necessary local relationships.

About the APhA Foundation

 

The American Pharmacists Association (APhA) Foundation is a non-profit organization affiliated with the American Pharmacists Association, the national professional society of pharmacists in the United States. The APhA Foundation has expertise in designing programs that seek to create a new medication use system in the United States where patients, pharmacists, physicians and other health care providers collaborate to dramatically improve the cost and quality of consumer health outcomes through the safe and effective use of medications. www.aphafoundation.org.

 

CONTACT:

Jayme Soulati
ECI Communications
937-431-8446