Healthcare | Sunday 28 January, 2018 3:01 am |

NAHDI Medical Company has issued a summary report on the results of the diabetes program launched in November 2014 in partnership with the Joslin Diabetes Center and the diabetes centers of the Ministry of Health in Saudi Arabia. The Joslin Center, located in Boston, Massachusetts, is a leading international organization specialized in diabetes research, clinical care, and education, and it is also affiliated with Harvard Medical School. The center prepared the diabetes program in cooperation with the Health and Community Service Department in Nahdi Medical Company. The preparation and execution stages were supervised by the Ministry of Health.

The program was carried out to test whether pharmacists can positively affect the lives of diabetic patients in the Kingdom through educational and counseling activities about diabetes. The program aims to raise the awareness, knowledge and confidence of diabetic patients on how to deal with and control this illness, as well as enhance their interaction with pharmacists and doctors. The program benefits from frequent and regular meetings between diabetes-educated pharmacists and diabetic patients; and because most people live close to pharmacies, it is easier for them to acquire information about the illness.

To implement the program, Nahdi Medical Company established specialized pharmacies where patients could find out more about diabetes, ask questions, and participate in the diabetes program. The pharmacies include special units called Health Education Clinics, which offer counseling services for patients; aiming to determine how well patients interact with pharmacists and to what extent they consider them a trusted source of health information. The clinics also help patients determine the right time to see their doctors, in addition to checking the impact on their health (adherence to drugs, blood glucose control, change of vital indicators).

Nahdi Medical Company organized training courses for 61 of its pharmacists, giving them the opportunity to work as diabetes educators in a government-supported national education program about diabetes. In addition, a subset of about 25 pharmacists received additional training and certification from the Joslin Diabetes Center, enabling them to work as Diabetes Consultant Pharmacists. Those pharmacists participated in an intensive three-day training course provided by doctors and experts from the center in order to provide additional information on diabetes.

In order to evaluate the diabetes program, the Joslin Diabetes Center organized online polls where diabetes consultant pharmacists could collect information about diabetic patients in order to evaluate and follow-up on their conditions. The pharmacists identified the number of diabetic patients visiting pharmacies in order to determine the capacity of the preliminary sessions, the number of patients who agree to join the program, and the number of patients who attend each counseling session.

The program evaluation goals included calculating the number of individuals who signed up for the program and participated in the follow-up phase, as well as understanding the background and needs of the participants of the program and learning how to attract those who did not participate. The goals also included measuring the impact of the program on several aspects.

In her comment, Sarah Anwar Turkistani - Health And Community Service Department Head of Nahdi Medical Company said, “Results showed that the diabetes program witnessed a noticeable change in the results of the Health Education Clinics; the A1C test showed significant changes after controlling for the psychological burden of diabetes, as well as the patient’s age, gender, and the time they’ve lived with the disease. The results showed a significant decrease from 8.50 to 7.32 (p < 0.001), where the average change in the A1C test for all guests was -1.18. There is also a noticeable improvement in the percentage of guests following a diet plan as part of their treatment: increasing from 6.3 percent in the first session to 32.3 percent during the follow-up session. The percentage of guests who reported no attempts to treat diabetes decreased from 6.1 to 1.1 percent.”