A Pharmacist-Coordinated Implementation of the Diabetes Prevention Program

The staggering number of Americans with prediabetes, now 1 in 3 adults,(1, 2) reinforces the urgency of implementing effective action to prevent incident diabetes. Several randomized controlled trials (RCTs) including the Diabetes Prevention Program (DPP) have demonstrated that both intensive lifestyle change and metformin significantly reduce the risk of progression to diabetes compared to placebo.(3-5) Prior efforts to disseminate treatment with lifestyle into practice have resulted in variable uptake and very limited population reach,(6) and their has been minimal to virtually no uptake of metformin for the treatment of prediabetes.

Within the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) Health System, the investigators have developed a program that embeds pharmacists in ambulatory clinics to co-manage patients with primary care physicians. The program, called Managing your Medications for Education and Daily Support (MyMEDS), has enrolled and treated almost 250 patients with diabetes and poorly-controlled cardiovascular risk factors in 14 primary care clinics over the last 12-months. Because of its effectiveness, leadership at UCLA Health has disseminated this program to all 28 primary care clinics in the system, and covers program-related costs including the pharmacists' salaries and appointment scheduling. The MyMEDS program is now part of routine clinical operations and represents a promising resource that could be mobilized to improve care for patients with prediabetes.

The investigators propose to implement a novel and pragmatic diabetes prevention intervention leveraging and extending the existing MyMEDS infrastructure. Within 10 of 20 randomly selected intervention clinics, the investigators will facilitate appointments for patients with prediabetes to the MyMEDS pharmacists. The pharmacists will educate patients about the DPP and engage them in shared decision-making about diabetes prevention, using a decision aid developed by HealthWise©. They will jointly develop a plan of care that includes intensive lifestyle change (preferred strategy since it has the greatest probability of reducing incident diabetes mellitus (DM)) and/or metformin, or take no immediate action and the pharmacist will communicate this decision to the primary care physician via our electronic health record (EHR). For participants who select lifestyle change, the investigators will partner with the YMCA (Young Men's Christian Association) of Metropolitan Los Angeles, which offers the DPP at multiple locations at sliding-scale rates. The YMCA will track attendance and participation in 16 weekly lifestyle change sessions and report this data to the pharmacists and study team (see Appendix 1 for letter of support). Patients can also participate in the UCLA DPP which is a separate DPP delivered on the UCLA campus. For patients who also select metformin, pharmacists will prescribe the medication as permitted under California law SB 493.(7) Pharmacists will see patients with prediabetes in routine follow-up to reinforce the care plan. This will be a pragmatic trial, and research funds will not be used to support delivery of the intervention. Rather than measuring the impact of lifestyle and/or metformin on incident diabetes or other clinical parameters, our primary endpoint will measure improvements in active engagement of treatment for prediabetes. The Specific Aims are as follows:

1. In a practice level, cluster-randomized, intention-to-treat trial, to test the effectiveness of using pharmacists to implement diabetes prevention strategies among patients with prediabetes, as compared to patients receiving usual care, on several outcomes with pre-planned stratification of a-e by age (<60 vs > 60 years):
2. Uptake of intensive lifestyle change and/or metformin at 4 months (primary outcome)
3. Proportion of patients who achieve >5% weight loss at 4 and 12 months
4. Adjusted mean weight loss at 4 and 12 months, as a percentage of body weight at baseline
5. Adjusted change in A1c at 12 months
6. Adjusted change in systolic blood pressure at 12 months
7. To evaluate characteristics that will influence long-term sustainability of this intervention, among those in the intervention arm the investigators will measure:
8. Acceptability to patients, physicians, pharmacists, clinic staff, and community partners including the YMCA
9. Patient-reported psychosocial impact of their prediabetes, both positive and negative, stratified by the treatment selected
10. Uptake of intensive lifestyle change and/or metformin at 4 months, by age (< 60 vs. 60+), gender, and race/ethnicity
11. The incremental cost of program implementation per participant who successfully initiates lifestyle change and/or metformin.

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