The Asheville Project® Draws Interest from Tokyo, Japan
Two pharmacy professors and their graduate students from Showa University in Tokyo, Japan visited Asheville in May to learn more about The Asheville Project®, a successful multidisciplinary care management program for people with chronic conditions such as diabetes, asthma, hypertension and high cholesterol.
The Project provides intensive education to employees with these conditions through Mission Hospital's Diabetes and Health Education Center. Patients are also teamed up with community pharmacists who help them understand how to use their medications correctly. According to The Asheville Project website, "The Project has resulted in a system in which pharmacists have developed thriving patient care services in their community pharmacies, with employees, retirees, and dependents with diabetes experiencing improved A1C levels, lower total health care costs, fewer sick days, and increased satisfaction with pharmacists' services."
It seemed inevitable that The Asheville Project would gain attention outside of the country. It has already been recognized and mirrored in several states, including Alabama, Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Kentucky, Maryland, Minnesota, North Dakota, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Texas, West Virginia and Wisconsin.
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Isao Saito, PharmD., Clinical Instructor, and Assistant Professor of Pharmacy Practice at the university and Dr. Miwako Kamei, a Professor and Research Leader, learned of The Asheville Project through a previous visit by Kamei. After that visit, Kamei returned to Japan with a plan to execute a similar model, but she could not gather the support she needed. However, recently the Japanese government and hospital pharmacy association has showed interest and will begin a pilot project of the model at two hospitals; a 215 bed hospital for diabetes and a 667 bed hospital for asthma. If the program is successful, next year those hospitals will work with the Japanese pharmacy association to expand the model to community pharmacies.
"We were so impressed by the fact that all the parties who contribute to The Asheville Project; pharmacists, MDs, nurses, and city staffs, recognize the importance of disease management," said Saito and Kamei. "We learned that we can not get successful results without common recognition among the people in the project. In Japan, we are lagging regarding disease prevention because the healthcare system tends to pay for treatments and not pay for prevention. In addition, public and healthcare providers do not pay attention to healthcare costs. We will adopt the learned information to our project, and will show that pharmacists and community pharmacies can play an important role for disease management and prevention."
The number of people with diabetes in Japan has increased 1.4 times in the last 48 years perhaps due to a rise in westernized diets, less exercise, less sleep and later dinners and bedtimes. Asthma is on the rise as well. Saito and Kamei say the pilot program will begin this summer, followed by a goal of disease management training at 10 pharmacies. They also plan to publish yearly results of the project.
"Ben Franklin was right," says Barry Bunting, Pharm.D., and V.P. of Clinical Services at American Healthcare, who attended the meeting. "An ounce of prevention really is worth a pound of cure." "This visit has made me realize that even though we have a long way to go to improve health care in our country, we have at least demonstrated that preventing poor outcomes of chronic illnesses is possible. There is no denying that it can cost less to keep people from breaking than it does to fix them when they break. There is growing evidence that preventive approaches can actually control rising healthcare costs. That is why there is such interest in the research done in Asheville. There are not many success stories showing that it is possible to control health care costs. That is good news for everyone, even people in Japan."
For more information on The Asheville Project® disease management services offered through Mission Hospitals, contact Anna Garrett at (828) 213-4782.
