Dive Brief:
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CVS Health will launch the Transform Diabetes Care program in early 2017 to help its pharmacy benefit management clients.
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The program will use data analytics to personalize care for diabetes patients and CVS hopes it will allow each participating diabetic client to save as much as $5,000 annually.
- The goal is to reduce spending on diabetes patients by offering them personalized strategies to improve medication adherence, control over blood glucose levels, and make healthy lifestyle changes.
Dive Insight:
Throughout healthcare, various stakeholders are turning to data analytics and technology-based solutions to reduce spending on diabetes care and improve health outcomes among diabetics.
Diabetes medications were the leading driver of gross costs for CVS Health clients in 2016, according to Jonathan Roberts, president of CVS Caremark. Nationwide, spending on diabetes-related healthcare totaled $245 billion in 2012, including $176 billion in direct medical costs, according to the American Diabetes Association.
CVS Health is not the first to launch an initiative aimed at improving diabetes care with an analytics-based approach. Earlier this year, IBM and the American Diabetes Association announced a partnership to use cognitive computing to translate data into digital tools that aid diabetes management.
Initiatives like these hope to illuminate areas where both patients and providers can change their behavior to address shortcomings in the management of diabetes. “Through the power of cognitive insights, by translating big data into these insights, we are going to bring visibility to this disease,” Dr. Kyu Rhee, IBM Watson Health’s chief health officer previously told Healthcare Dive.