Los Angeles clinic shows flaws in diabetes care

By Lisa Baertlein

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Two years ago, Mike Metcalfe awoke from a five-day coma to discover he was diabetic, a new statistic in a disease that has reached epidemic proportions in the United States and other rich countries.

But unlike some other sufferers of diabetes, which cost the United States an estimated $132 billion per year, Metcalfe has his condition under control and hasn't darkened a hospital door in the intervening two years.

That is thanks to a program designed at the University of Southern California's School of Pharmacy that puts pharmacists into community clinics serving the poor.

In addition to filling prescriptions, they give check-ups, order tests and help high-risk patients manage the complex drug regimens that come with diabetes, high cholesterol and heart disease.

Such intervention helps rein in the costs of treating chronic diseases, which are taking an ever-increasing chunk out of U.S. health care spending, by paring unneeded drugs and tapping programs that provide common, or even the latest, medicines free of charge or at steep discounts.

"If you give the right medicines, you will save in the long run," said Steven Chen, the program's pharmacist supervisor, who oversees five pharmacists and five residents working at seven Los Angeles safety-net clinics and a mobile asthma van in Orange County.

Metcalfe, 53, takes his medicine religiously, has adopted a healthy diet, and has moved on from his tiny room on Los Angeles' Skid Row -- one of the poorest areas of Los Angeles and a home to many indigent people.

"Dr. Chen saved my life," said Metcalfe, who still attends the same clinic in Skid Row.