Employers enroll with University of Maryland program to help

Daily Record, The (Baltimore), Dec 20, 2007 by Karen Buckelew

A growing number of Maryland's large employers are signing up for a University of Maryland School of Pharmacy program that helps diabetic employees manage their chronic disease.

The Maryland P3 Program began last year in Allegany County with just one self-insured employer, the Western Maryland Health System.

But by March, the program will include companies and their employees in Harford, Howard and Washington counties and Baltimore City.

The P3 program, which is supported through the current fiscal year with $100,000 in state money for infrastructure, is designed for such growth, said coordinator Christine Lee.

"We hope to expand across the state," Lee said.

P3 -- Patients, Pharmacists, Partnerships -- pairs diabetic workers with specially trained pharmacists for regular one-on-one consultations on managing the patients' diabetes, a chronic disease that can cause serious complications including stroke, blindness and amputation.

Self-insured employers offer the program to workers as a benefit under their health program, but P3 could appeal to other companies as well, said Lee.

"The main goal is motivate and empower patients to understand why it is so necessary to manage their disease early on," Lee said.

Health care as a whole is transitioning toward pharmacists playing a larger role in patient care, said Magaly Rodriguez de Bittner, chair of the school's department of pharmacy practice and science.

"The pharmacist is one of the most under-utilized health care team members," said Rodriguez de Bittner. "They're right in the neighborhoods, they have access to the patient, but they have not been utilized as part of the team."

P3 pharmacists follow a protocol and share information compiled by the American Pharmacists Association Foundation, guiding patients to get regular eye exams, watch their blood pressure and weight, eat right, get enough exercise and care for their feet properly.

Participating employers are hoping to cut their health care spending. Poorly managed diabetes can result in expensive emergency room visits and hospitalizations, Lee said.

P3 program administrators expect it to save its members $918 in annual health care costs per patient after the first year and to cut absenteeism by 50 percent, she added.

Two months ago, Upper Chesapeake Health System in Harford County became the second employer to sign onto P3.

The company, which operates Upper Chesapeake Medical Center in Bel Air and Harford Memorial Hospital in Havre de Grace, wants to save money and keep employees healthy, said Laura D. Hefner, director of benefits.

"Upper Chesapeake is always looking for ways to promote better health," said Hefner "We figured, why not start with our own employees?"

Upper Chesapeake has identified 99 of its employees who are eligible for P3, but just five have signed on so far to partner with pharmacists at Klein's Family Markets.

Klein's is allowing its pharmacists to work with P3 patients during working hours. Pharmacists elsewhere work with patients on their own time, and the patients' employers reimburse the pharmacists for their time.

The number of diabetic Marylanders benefiting from the program is set to grow this winter, Lee said.

Western Maryland Health System has 125 of its employees and their family members enrolled in Allegany County.

In January, the P3 program will add as many as 100 diabetic and heart disease patients who work at the Good Humor-Breyers plant in Hagerstown, owned by Unilever North American Ice Cream.

The following month, the People's Community Health Centers in Baltimore City will offer P3 to about 20 Medicaid patients whose benefits are administered through Maryland Physicians Care, a managed care provider.

And in March, the program becomes available to as many as 200 employees of chemical and materials manufacturer W.R. Grace in Columbia and Curtis Bay.

Mickey Christian, 37, an Upper Chesapeake security guard who learned in February that he is diabetic, said working with a Klein's pharmacist in Aberdeen has helped him lose weight and cope with his chronic disease.

"Through discipline and everything," said Christian of his diabetes, "it's workable."