Abstract
Objective: To assess the clinical outcomes of participants of an employee wellness program during four years of service implementation. Methods: A prospective cohort study was conducted at 15 independent community pharmacy chain locations in northwest and central Missouri. A total of 200 participants were enrolled in an employee wellness program, and the program included five monitoring groups—cholesterol, blood pressure, blood glucose, weight, and healthy participant groups. Participants selected a pharmacist wellness coordinator and wellness appointments were conducted, consisting of education, goal-setting, and monitoring through physical assessment and point of care testing. The primary outcome measures were total cholesterol (TC), triglycerides (TG), high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C), low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C), systolic blood pressure (SBP), diastolic blood pressure (DBP), fasting blood glucose (FBG), body mass index (BMI), and waist circumference (WC). The secondary outcome measures were the proportion of patients who achieved the clinical value goals at baseline versus 48 months. The primary outcome measures among data collection time points were compared using one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) tests, and the secondary outcomes were compared between baseline and 48 months by Chi-square or Fisher’s exact tests. One-way ANOVA post hoc tests were also performed using least significant difference, to further identify which time points differed from each other. Results: At baseline, there were 134 patients in the cholesterol monitoring group, 129 in the weight monitoring group, 117 in the blood pressure monitoring group, 46 in the blood glucose monitoring group, and 26 in the healthy participant monitoring group. For patients in the blood pressure monitoring group, compared with baseline, there was a significant decrease in DBP at months 12, 24, 36, and 48, and a significant increase in the proportion of patients achieving blood pressure goals at 48 months. For patients in the blood glucose monitoring group, compared with baseline, there was a significant decrease in FBG at months 12, 24, 36, and 48, and a significant increase in the proportion of patients achieving blood glucose goals at 48 months. Conclusions: Pharmacist-led wellness visits provided to employee wellness patients in a community pharmacy may lead to improvements in BP and FBG values.
Highlights
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, sixty percent of adults in the UnitedStates (U.S.) are living with a chronic condition
For patients in the blood pressure monitoring group, compared with baseline, there was a significant decrease in diastolic blood pressure (DBP) at months 12, 24, 36, and 48, and a significant increase in the proportion of patients achieving blood pressure goals at 48 months
For patients in the blood glucose monitoring group, compared with baseline, there was a significant decrease in fasting blood glucose (FBG) at months 12, 24, 36, and 48, and a significant increase in the proportion of patients achieving blood glucose goals at 48 months
Summary
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, sixty percent of adults in the UnitedStates (U.S.) are living with a chronic condition. The agency states that seventy-one cents of every healthcare dollar are spent on individuals with multiple chronic conditions [2]. In the U.S, employers cover fifty-eight percent of employee medical costs [3]. Employees with chronic conditions incur higher medical costs, and have more missed workdays and show less productivity [3]. To address these issues, many employers have incorporated wellness initiatives into their benefits programs as a cost-containment strategy. A wide range of employer-sponsored wellness services have been implemented including worksite wellness clinics, web-based programs, activity challenges, medication therapy management services, and disease state management programs [4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21,22]
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