MTM AND DIABETES

Times of COVID19 in the year 2020 will be looked up in history as times of resilience, rising

to the challenges, innovating, and renovating lifestyle mindsets and ultimately

traversing through to be not stagnant in the quagmire. Telehealth made its mark

during this unprecedented time across the world and many new platforms emerged

in terms of software and  lifting off some heavyweight regulations to make sure

 care for patients was fluid without compromises. Retail pharmacist dawn on

plexi glasses and masks and served as warriors to public health platforms in

various ways. Diabetic patients now had to face trifold challenges in terms of

protecting themselves in terms of the most vulnerable population, meet the

challenges of getting their insulins and medications without any delay and stay

under the radar in terms of facing dire consequences if any of them were to be

infected with COVID.

medication therapy management played a crucial role in such challenging times via

telehealth where patient concerns were addressed and the pharmacist's role as

the provider gets reiterated in bold. The endocrinologist role gets further augmented

by very crucial support that pharmacist with expertise in diabetes can provide

and we can stand out as gap bridgers between a physician and patient and thus

balance the demand and supply chain of pharmacists in the current system.

Remote Patient monitoring is on a breakthrough of innovation where many platforms now

support the data transmission from patients to the provider in real-time and

have a quick turnaround for clinical intervention. Thus, leveraging intensive glycemic

control in a time-sensitive manner in an ultra-rapid way of impacting and

reducing microvascular complications of diabetes. MTM pharmacist providers are

in a unique position to balance the service to the patients and support the physician

with their extensive knowledge of drugs.

In a nutshell, the pharmacist is in a top  position to help and guide the patients in

terms of identifying the chronic state of their disease, long term implications

of non-adherence, distinguishing different diet plans, understanding glycemic index,

a need to understand and monitor HBA1C levels, and empowering the patient with

knowledge suited to their health condition and making the most in terms of

clinical outcomes. Pharmacists can make the patient an essential part of the

the team as without the patient's willingness to being proactive about their health

every encounter will fail. Emotional intelligence, motivational

interviewing techniques play a significant role in our patient's lives, and MTM is a

roadmap to success.