(1056) Assessment of an Educational Program for Community-based Pharmacists Measuring Their Comfortability Counseling Patients and Understanding on Continuous Glucose Monitoring Devices: A Pre-post Study

Objectives: The primary objective of this research is to assess Central-Texas pharmacists' knowledge-gaps regarding continuous glucose monitoring (CGM). Secondary objectives include capturing pharmacist’s perceptions of continuous glucose monitoring and comfort level in counseling patients on continuous glucose monitoring.

Data has shown that pharmacist-managed CGM can help patients reach A1C goals but there is a current lack of literature focusing on community pharmacist understanding of CGM, CGM training programs for pharmacists and comfortability counseling patients on CGM devices. CGM technology is readily available to patients through a prescribing physician but the initial installation and patient training on the device create a barrier to use. Pharmacists have the unique position to engage patients about these devices when dispensing; Therefore, there is value in assessing pharmacist perceptions on this product in Central Texas, assessing their baseline knowledge, and appropriately training them to improve patient care and patient education. After training, pharmacists should be able to identify patients who are appropriate candidates for CGM and provide comprehensive counseling to those patients on CGM use. This research can be used to model effective training strategies for pharmacists and further develop training materials for pharmacists regarding patient counseling and continuous glucose monitoring.

Methods: This study will utilize a pre-survey, learning module, and post-survey integrated with online training modules targeted towards supermarket-based community pharmacists. Participants will also be asked to complete the survey based on their current understanding and knowledge and the results of the pre-survey will not impact completion of the training module. The survey will consist of demographic items, assessment of knowledge of CGM devices and comfortability counseling on these products, barriers to patient counseling and perception of CGM technology. Demographic information collected will include age, years in practice, ethnicity, location, and prior training on CGMs or diabetes care.

The learning module will be approximately 30 minutes to educate pharmacists on how to properly counsel patients interested in using continuous glucose monitoring and will include information on benefits of CGM, blood glucose goals when using CGM, types of continuous glucose monitors and which to choose based on patient factors, installation of CGM devices, proper use of CGMs, providing patient resources, insurance coverage, and management of side effects from CGM. Completion of the training module will be tracked through the online learning system. After completion, participants will be sent the post-survey consisting of the same items as the pre-survey. Survey results will be analyzed to determine the effect of the training module on the pharmacists’ knowledge and comfortability counseling patients on CGM devices. Descriptive statistics will be used to determine differences in effect based on demographics.

Results: N/A

Conclusions: N/A