New course provides tools to help patients sleep better

Insomnia is one of those issues many people struggle with at various points in their lives. Now a new pharmacist-led, online program is aiming to remedy the problem by training pharmacists to help patients better deal with sleep issues. The PharmaZzz program is the brain-child of pharmacists Karen Jensen and Fred Remillard, who were working at the University of Saskatchewan’s College of Pharmacy and Nutrition before retiring in 2018. What started off as a pilot program for pharmacists in the province, proved so successful that an online version was recently launched for pharmacists across Canada. Using engaging videos, the five-hour accredited course led by pharmacists, teaches participants the components of Non-Medication Therapy for Insomnia (NMTi), which has been shown to help patients improve sleep issues by changing habits and unhelpful thoughts around sleep. It also discusses how NMTi can be applied in a community pharmacy and primary care setting. Jensen says as the most accessible healthcare professionals, pharmacists are in a great position to identify patients who would benefit from NMTi, be it those on hypnotics for long periods or those looking for over-the-counter relief. Based on the questions coming into the University’s medSask drug information centre where Jensen was manager, she realized that community pharmacists could be playing a much bigger role in helping their patients sleep better. “All pharmacists could recommend was sleep hygiene and we know on its own that’s not effective,” says Jensen. “By the time people come to the pharmacy, they’d been on a hypnotic for many months, or even years, and they were still not sleeping well.” Training pharmacists to help offer sleep solutions While NMTi isn’t new, training pharmacists to provide the service is what makes PharmaZzz such a unique program. Given that long wait lists for practitioners who can provide NMTi often means patients suffer sleeplessly for months, training pharmacists to provide the service seemed like an ideal solution,” says Remillard, former Associate Dean of Research and Graduate Affairs at the College of Pharmacy and Nutrition, as well as certified psychiatric pharmacist. “We always try and encourage more cognitive services for pharmacists…so this [course] really is a perfect fit,” he says. “Pharmacists now have a program in their back pocket that they can start using in practice and charging for.” Remillard expects that insomnia will become an even bigger problem in the community setting, given all the escalated mental health issues stemming from COVID-19. “With this program we are encouraging pharmacists to start recruiting right away,” he says. “Everyone has five or six patients they can think of who could use help with sleep.” As the online program rolls out, he says feedback from participants will also be key to keep improving content over time. The cost to enrol in PharmaZzz is $250, which gives participants access to a whole host of online resources, including patient screening forms and sleep logs, as well as promos for pharmacists to promote the service. (There are also discounts for early-bird participants and all health science students will be offered the course for $75.) Completion of the PharmaZzz course will also now be mandatory for all PharmD students at U of Sask. Find more information about PharmaZzz here.

New course provides tools to help patients sleep better

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