Third-year pharmacy students propose an interprofessional prediabetes educational programme: PreDiaMe (Prediabetes + Me)

ABSTRACT

The American Diabetes Association announced in 2012 that 86 million Americans were diagnosed with prediabetes compared to 79 million in 2010. Prediabetes + Me (PreDiaMe) is an innovative educational programme developed by pharmacy students at Nova Southeastern University College of Pharmacy, which provides collaborative interprofessional care for patients with prediabetes. A literature review using EBSCOhost, EMBASE, and MEDLINE databases searching the terms education, health services, interprofessional team, and prediabetes was conducted. Human studies published in English between 2006 and 2016 were included. Investigators interviewed a community pharmacist and a consultant pharmacist certified in diabetes education. Based on these interviews and the literature found, PreDiaMe was created to unite healthcare professionals through a three-step community outreach programme. The goal of PreDiaMe is to identify patients at risk of prediabetes, to decrease the prevalence of type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM), to reduce healthcare costs, and to improve the quality of life for patients with prediabetes. PreDiaMe benefits patients with prediabetes, the healthcare system, and pedagogy as it aims to decrease in the prevalence and economic burden and increase health outcomes of patients with prediabetes while being used as a tool to provide integrative education in health professional programmes.

KEYWORDS:

• Interprofessional education
• interprofessional collaboration
• pharmacy
• prediabetes

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to acknowledge the editor and reviewer for ensuring the quality of this article. The authors also thank Sarah Alamaddine, PharmD, Frank Gorzinski, PharmD, and Antonella Martino, PharmD, CDE, for their collaboration and integral function into the creation of PreDiaMe.

Declaration of interest

The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of this article.