The effect of community pharmacist-led health coaching on clinical outcomes

To evaluate the impact of a community pharmacist-driven health coaching program on clinical outcomes from baseline to 1 year.

Independent community pharmacy in western North Carolina.

Sona Pharmacy + Clinic is an independent community pharmacy offering enhanced clinical services such as medication synchronization, adherence packaging, and free delivery. Sona Benefits offers pharmacy benefit manager (PBM) services to self-funded plans in western North Carolina.

Sona Health Management Program is a disease management program offered to Sona Benefits PBM clients; the services began in October 2016.

Change in clinical outcome measures (total number of medications, blood pressure, hemoglobin A1c, weight, low-density lipoprotein cholesterol [LDL-C], high-density lipoprotein cholesterol [HDL-C], triglycerides [TG], patient health questionnaire [PHQ-9] scores, and asthma control test [ACT] scores) were assessed for members who participated in the program for a minimum of 12 months for at least 2 of the following conditions: hypertension, hyperlipidemia, diabetes, depression, and asthma.

Health coaching was provided to 42 members (mean age of 55.9 years and 2.7 qualifying disease states). The mean number of medications per patient significantly decreased from 7.2 to 6.2 (P = 0.02). Systolic and diastolic blood pressures were significantly reduced from 130.8 mm Hg to 125.7 mm Hg (P = 0.04) and 76.9 mm Hg to 73.7 mm Hg (P = 0.04), respectively. Other clinical outcome measures evaluated, such as hemoglobin A1c, weight, LDL-C, HDL-C, TG, and PHQ-9 and ACT scores, were improved but did not reach significance.

These results suggest that community pharmacists can have a positive impact on patients with multiple chronic conditions through health coaching services. This project suggests a potential model of pharmacist health coaching through pharmacist-run PBM services.