Immersive training transforms how pharmacists support diabetes patients.
A New Frontier in Diabetes Management
Diabetes affects more than 30 million Americans, in turn creating a need for more innovative solutions. What has been well known to gamers for a while, virtual reality (VR), is now helping advance healthcare education. A new study found that VR training could better help community pharmacists with the skills to assist patients in navigating continuous glucose monitors (CGMs).
After all, pharmacists are not just medication experts, but also the most accessible healthcare providers in our community.
On average, a patient will visit their local pharmacy up to 35 times per year, equating to far more interaction than with their primary care physician. This frequent interaction places pharmacists in a more central role in helping patients manage more chronic conditions like diabetes.
Why Pharmacists Hold the Key
As newer guidelines are supporting the use of CGM’s to monitor glucose, pharmacists have a large opportunity to step in and become educators. These devices are developed to provide real-time blood glucose readings, to help patients avoid complications such as hypo or hyperglycemia. The issue is that many pharmacists lack hands-on-training with CGM technology, making it harder to guide less “tech savvy” patients.
This is where our long time friend of gamers, virtual reality, steps in.
VR Training: A Game-Changer for Pharmacists
Researchers teamed up with VR developers to create a simulation using a common CGM on the market, the Freestyle Libre 3. Pharmacists used VR headsets to complete the following:
- Unobox the device
- Apply the sensors virtually
- Interpret the glucose data in a hand’s on environment
The results were transformative.
After completion of the training, pharmacists reported a 275% increase in confidence when counseling patients in using CGMs. For many of these pharmacists, it was their first actual time interacting with a CGM (virtually of course) since these devices were not around during their didactic training.
Unlike more traditional training with live teachers, which are very difficult to fit into a pharmacist’s schedule, VR provides a clear solution which is on demand and can be scalable to a larger degree.
While the study showed that the overall experience was positive, many acknowledged that there was a learning curve to using these VR devices for the first time.
The Road Ahead
This study clearly highlighted the potential that VR has to reshape pharmacy education. By combining this type of hands-on-training with such an immersive technology, pharmacists are better equipped to support patients in managing chronic conditions like diabetes.
As diabetes rates continues to climb in the US, technology like VR could dramatically transform community pharmacies into sites for chronic care management.
Stepping into the virtual world seems to be the start of a solution to a more complex problem. For pharmacists, training with virtual reality could change one life at a time, and the use of this technology is endless.
