Academic Pharmacy Now: 2020 Issue 2

Academic Pharmacy

The News Magazine of the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy

NOW

Volume 13 2020 Issue 2

Serving All Communities Pharmacy schools are providing accessible care to underserved populations. 16

Also in this issue: Tackling 21st Century Tobacco 5 Innovations that REACH from Lab to Market 14

Pharmacists Help People Live Healthier, Better Lives.

who we are @AACPharmacy

Academic Pharmacy The News Magazine of the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy

Pharmacists Help People Live Healthier, Better Lives.

1400 Crystal Drive, Suite 300 P Arlington, VA 22202 703-739-2330 P www.aacp.org Founded in 1900, the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy is the national organization representing the interests of pharmacy education. AACP comprises all accredited colleges and schools of pharmacy, including more than 6,600 faculty, approximately 63,800 students enrolled in professional programs and 4,800 individuals pursuing graduate study.

NOW

CEO & Publisher

Lucinda L. Maine Editorial Advisor

Lynette R. Bradley-Baker

Editorial Director

Maureen Thielemans Managing Editor

Letters to the Editor

Jane E. Rooney

We welcome your comments. Please submit all letters to the editor to communications@aacp.org.

About Academic Pharmacy Now

Academic Pharmacy Now highlights the work of AACP member pharmacy schools and faculty. The magazine is published as a membership service.

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©2020 by the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy.

All rights reserved. Content may not be reprinted without prior written permission.

Freelance Writer

AACP’s Professional Supporter Program

Joseph Cantlupe

Freelance Writer

Emily Jacobs

Promotion Supporter Freelance Writer

Athena Ponushis

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Academic Pharmacy NOW  2020 Issue 2

Volume 13 2020 Issue 2

@AACPharmacy a look inside

campus connection

5 Tackling a 21st-Century

7 Thriving in Innovation

Tobacco Problem

NIPTE takes a collaborative approach to drug development research to identify and solve pharmaceutical challenges.

Vaping investigations provide opportunities to expand pharmacy curricula.

community impact

12

16

Ohio State Pharmacy Professor Appointed to WHO Antimicrobial Stewardship Program Pharmacists can play a more prominent role in helping healthcare facilities in lower-income countries ward off antimicrobial resistance.

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Care That Encompasses Every Community Pharmacy schools are focused on providing accessible healthcare to underserved populations.

Driving Discovery Collaborating with industry, pharmacy schools are turning academic findings into commercial products.

@AACPharmacy

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Hitting a Second Wind

INsight 2020 provided attendees a chance to recharge with new connections, strategies and perspectives from Puerto Rico.

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community note publisher’s impact

Dear Colleagues: As I write this letter, the chaos of the coronavirus pandemic is absorbing virtually all our time and attention. At this point no one knows what the true impact of the virus will be here in the United States or across the world. Certainly there are lessons to glean from those countries that saw the infection earlier than others, but incomplete scientific and public health information—along with too much misinformation— compromises our best efforts to prevent the spread, identify cases in a timely and reliable way and treat those whose health has been seriously affected.

The articles in this issue of Academic Pharmacy Now are remarkably on target with the issues COVID-19 has surfaced. Pharmacists’ accessibility, especially for rural and inner-city populations, has never been more critical but is significantly challenged even apart from the pandemic.

Health outcomes are lower in “pharmacy deserts,” as Dima Qato, our current National Academy of Medicine Pharmacy Fellow, has documented in her scholarly contributions to the medical literature.

We cannot be certain that the supply of pharmaceuticals and medical devices that have become so dependent on manufacturing outside our country will meet the needs of our citizens if major disruptions in those supplies arise due to the virus. The ability for the U.S. to become more self-reliant in drug development, manufacturing and distribution is essential. The 16 universities and the pharmaceutical scientists affiliated with The National Institute for Pharmaceutical Technology & Education (NIPTE), as well as those schools and faculty leading efforts in innovation with support from the NIH Centers for Accelerated Innovations (NCAI) and the Institute’s Research Evaluation and Commercialization Hubs (REACH), are to be commended for their work. It holds promise for innovation to address not just U.S. healthcare but the world’s needs as well.

As we navigate the weeks and months ahead with significant efforts targeted to stop the spread of COVID-19 and meet the country’s public health needs, our students, our pharmacists and our faculty will play key roles. It is a time to join forces with colleagues across the health professions in new and important ways. We look forward to documenting those contributions in a future issue of Academic Pharmacy Now. Sincerely,

Lucinda L. Maine, Ph.D., R.Ph. CEO and Publisher

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campus connection

Tackling a 21st-Century Tobacco Problem Vaping investigations provide opportunities to expand pharmacy curricula.

By Emily Jacobs Vaping and e-cigarettes, widely used “The whole point of the toxicology The College of Pharmacy’s Self Care as a substitute for traditional tobacco course is to give student pharmacists Therapeutics course, for example, cigarettes, made headlines in 2019 in exposure to [the specifics of] overdose,” teaches students how to evaluate a paan outbreak of respiratory illness and said Dr. Steven Dudley, toxicologist tient who is concerned about smoking. lung injury across the United States. By and managing director of the Arizona Students learn what over-the-counter Sept. 6, there were more than 450 cases Poison and Drug Information Center. therapies to recommend, such as nicoof lung illness potentially associated “You spend your entire didactic career tine replacement therapy (NRT). While with e-cigarette use reported nationallooking at how to get somebody from vaping is often marketed as a smokingly, with six related fatalities confirmed. non-therapeutic to therapeutic on a cessation tool, NRT does not include drug state, but you rarely, if ever, talk vaping products.

Investigations into the outbreak inabout what happens if you go over, if cluded both federal agencies and state “With [NRT], the healthcare provider is you overshoot, whether that’s accihealth organizations, as well as the able to quantify the amount of nicotine dentally or intentionally. And that’s Arizona Poison and Drug Information the patient is receiving and slowly rea whole other side of the coin when it Center at the University of Arizona duce the amount over weeks to months comes to pharmacy knowledge.”

College of Pharmacy. Researchers until the patient is no longer dependent eventually identified vitamin E acetate on the nicotine,” said Dr. Bernadette Getting the Facts on Vaping as a major culprit in the lung injuries, Cornelison, assistant professor, DepartVaping has also become a hot topic mostly found in patients who had used ment of Pharmacy Practice and Science. when talking about smoking cessaTHC-containing substances in their “However, similar to cigarettes, there tion. Several courses at the University vaping products. is not a fixed dose of nicotine in the of Arizona College of Pharmacy that [vaping] product, making it difficult to already address smoking cessation Although vaping-associated lung inwean a patient.” now also include new information on juries have leveled off or declined, the vaping. These courses give student issue could have a lasting impact on Cornelison noted that there is currentpharmacists the necessary knowledge pharmaceutical school curricula and ly a lack of evidence to support vaping pharmacy practice. At the University of and tools to offer appropriate smokingas a smoking-cessation tool. Vaping cessation recommendations or referrals Arizona College of Pharmacy, leaders products also have not been approved to their future patients. are beginning to incorporate vaping into the school’s curriculum. For example, a toxicology elective offered to student pharmacists at the Arizona Poison and Drug Information Center now includes lectures that scrutinize the vaping outbreak. In this elective, students examine the characteristics and risk factors of the vaping-related illnesses. Students consider not only what was causing these respiratory illnesses but also how pharmacists can use their knowledge to make recommendations that help protect patients.

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campus connection

Vaping products have not been approved by the FDA as a healthier alternative to tobacco products. However, because vaping may be marketed as such, future pharmacists should be informed and prepared to answer patients’ questions regarding vaping as a smoking alternative.

by the FDA as a healthier alternative to tobacco products. However, because vaping may be marketed as such, future pharmacists should be informed and prepared to answer patients’ questions regarding vaping as a smoking alternative. “We do include [in the course] that if a patient is vaping, the student should also work with the patient to quit vaping using similar methods as smoking cessation,” she said.

By incorporating new research on vaping specifically, pharmacy schools can provide students with important, current information about potential overdose and toxicity. Graduates then have an advantage that helps them make an immediate impact in their chosen career path, whether that is research or patient-facing.

“It’s all related back to the healthcare role that we’re assuming,” Dudley Updating curricula is one way that said. “If there are complications from pharmacy schools can build on research a public health standpoint, who better and investigations, such as those being than [a pharmacist] to be able to step conducted on vaping-related illnesses. up and say, ‘Hey, because we know how Staying up to date on pharmacy’s this drug works, let’s discuss how we constant changes can help pharmacy can help treat this or how to prevent schools stay competitive and relevant to this becoming a bigger outbreak than it the needs of both students and patients. already is.’” P Emily Jacobs is a freelance writer based in Toledo, Ohio.

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campus connection

Thriving in Innovation NIPTE takes a collaborative approach to drug development research to identify and solve pharmaceutical challenges.

By Joseph A. Cantlupe

Talk to academics involved in The selves as a community of pharmaceutiNational Institute for Pharmaceutical cal knowledge and the scientific home Technology & Education (NIPTE) and for academic pharmaceutical sciences,” they will tell you it’s about striving said Dr. Vadim J. Gurvich, executive and thriving in innovation—inside and director of NIPTE and research associoutside the walls of academia. NIPTE ate professor of medicinal chemistry has collaborated with industry, acaat the University of Minnesota College demia and government, particularly the of Pharmacy. The organization, estabFood and Drug Administration (FDA), lished in 2005 and based in Minneapolis, to identify and help solve the world’s is a coalition of academic scientists pharmaceutical challenges, which are from pharmacy, education, engineering far-reaching and keep growing. NIPTE and chemistry and includes 16 universiscientists are exploring more effecties with pharmaceutical education and tive methods for the characterization research programs and one medical of active pharmaceutical ingredients school. Each university member’s repand drug products. They are identifyresentative serves on the NIPTE board ing strategies to prevent drug opioid of directors, providing leadership and addictions. They are charting ways financial oversight. to improve dosage form design and manufacturing. They are exploring how “From our perspective, there is a treto determine the quality of pharmaceu- mendous potential to draw together subject matter experts in the academic ticals. world and being able to connect those In addition, they are creating education experts to either industry or other reguand training programs that focus on latory agencies, such as the Food and evolving technology in pharmaceutical Drug Administration, to address some science and engineering with an eye on of the grand challenges as we move thwarting future workforce shortages. forward,” said Dr. Eric Barker, dean of And they are part of the conversation in the Purdue University College of PharWashington on accelerated drug develmacy and secretary of the NIPTE board. opment plans in light of pandemics such “We’re able to have collaborations and as the coronavirus. partnerships with members to draw together on their collective expertise.”

Most recently, NIPTE is studying plans to essentially overhaul the process for The mission: increase science and bringing generic medicines to marengineering-based understanding that ket that its scientists say could take can lead to new drug products to move dramatic steps to improve safety and to market faster with less variability quality while enhancing pharmaceutical and higher predictable performance at production in the U.S. “We define oura lower cost, said Gurvich. For example,

researchers are studying abuse-deterrent protocols, intervention-based opioid technology, nanotechnology, advanced manufacturing methods and the formulation of new drug products, “which is extremely challenging, cutting-edge science that addresses a huge societal need,” he added.

“We try to impact pharmaceutical quality, with research and a partnership with the FDA and funding from the FDA,” Gurvich continued. “So we are organizing faculty in a way that creates cutting-edge science with advanced manufacturing of small molecules and biologics.”

NIPTE Members Duquesne University Illinois Institute of Technology Long Island University Purdue University Rutgers University Texas A&M University University of Connecticut University of Iowa University of Kansas University of Kentucky University of Maryland University of Michigan University of Minnesota University of Mississippi University of Puerto Rico University of Rochester University of Texas

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campus connection

“We try to impact pharmaceutical quality, with research and a partnership with the FDA and funding from the FDA. So we are organizing faculty in a way that creates cutting-edge science with advanced manufacturing of small molecules and biologics.” ­—Dr. Vadim Gurvich

Key areas for academics associated with NIPTE involve their roles in advancing pharmaceutical development, analysis, manufacturing and instruction. “It is part of a critical path for young faculty,” said Dr. Fernando J. Muzzio, director of the National Science Foundation/Engineering Research Center on Structured Organic Particulate Systems based at Rutgers University, where he is a distinguished professor of chemical and biochemical engineering. NIPTE “promotes dialogue and cooperation among the different universities and creates the opportunity to work together and learn about each other,” Muzzio said, noting Rutgers’ NIPTE membership. “The most interesting thing is the interface between disciplines.”

For students, “these projects also allow them to become aware of what the FDA is and what it does and look into careers at the FDA,” he noted. “I have a number of students who went to work at the FDA and still work there.”

Preparing the Workforce Education and skills development in pharmaceutical science are essential elements in preparing a new work-

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force, according to Gurvich. At NIPTE, courses are taught based on what the organization calls a “quality and integrated review concept” involving product development, delivery, manufacturing and outcome—with collaboration as a key with schools of pharmacy and engineering. Chemistry and materials science are also included in NIPTE’s strategic roadmap.

necessarily to be experts but competent enough to work with the data.”

NIPTE’s examination of dosages (i.e., dosage forms) and complex molecules and specialty drug technology ties into Purdue’s strategic initiatives to expand its area of pharmaceutical and biotechnology instruction from basic science to clinical science for “cutting-edge educational programming,” Barker said.

NIPTE has a collection of “a close-knit group of deans,” he said.

NIPTE said its scientists organize into centers of excellence and focus groups to “more efficiently collaborate and in“Many of the NIPTE labs are doing tegrate their expertise across member organizations.” The focus groups target dosage design research, and some of advanced manufacturing, biologics and the information we are generating with biosimilars, nanotechnology and trans- prior knowledge may not be seen as cutting-edge research, but for pharlational biomarkers. The idea is to link maceutical analysis and formulations all areas within the scope of pharmaand master’s and Ph.D. level students, ceutical production, from development this is an invaluable learning experito manufacturing. ence, both in mastering techniques and “Large data has advanced more quickly formulation design,” said Dr. Kenthan our ability to analyze the data neth Morris, professor and director of and that’s a challenge,” said Barker.

Lachman Institute for Pharmaceutical “That we cannot go alone. We can draw Analysis at the Long Island University and tap into (NIPTE’s) tremendous Pharmacy, which is a NIPTE member. expertise in engineering and even agNIPTE is also working to identify the riculture. That’s a factor for both basic next compounds and products likely knowledge and having a program to to be important targets for the generic train data scientists to upskill the exist- industry, Morris said. ing workforce—not expecting them

campus connection

Pharmacy a Key Component in FDA’s Drug Manufacturing Strategy Federal officials are enlisting academia as they look toward a new generation of pharmaceutical manufacturing methods to overcome the country’s reliance on drugs produced overseas. While the U.S. is a leader in drug discovery and development, it relies heavily on drugs made in China and India. As a result, the Food and Drug Administration is encouraging investments in advanced manufacturing technology and establishing quality management systems to improve the quality of pharmaceuticals.

“FDA believes that advanced manufacturing can help regain its competitiveness with China and other foreign countries and potentially ensure a stable supply of drugs critical to the health of U.S. patients,” said Dr. Janet Woodcock, director of the FDA Center for Drug Evaluation and Research in testimony late last year before the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, subcommittee on Health.

key purpose in mind: improving the amount and quality of the U.S. drug supply. Proponents of advanced manufacturing say innovative technologies ranging from 3D printing to continuous manufacturing methods also can quickly move drugs to market. The continuous production method stands in contrast to the current predominately used batch method of drug production, which is considered inefficient and involves “breaks” or “stops” in the process.

“Advanced manufacturing offers many advantages over traditional pharmaceutical manufacturing and if the U.S. invests in this technology, it can be used to reduce the nation’s dependence on foreign sources of APIs to increase the resilience of our document manufacturing base and reduce quality issues that trigger drug shortages or recalls,” Woodcock said. Advanced manufacturing has been widely used in automotive, aerospace and semiconducting.

Between 70 and 80 percent of active pharmaceutical “The continuous state of control enables the continuous ingredients and 40 percent of finished products are made monitoring and assurance of product quality,” Muzzio outside the U.S. The FDA reported last year that 18 pertold Congress. Continuous manufacturing has been cent of Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (API) manuembraced to replace traditional and inefficient batch facturing facilities are located in India and 13 percent in methods in an era of “unprecedented innovation” followChina. The number of Chinese manufacturing facilities ing “decades of near stagnation,” Muzzio said. has doubled since 2010. As of late 2019, only 28 percent of manufacturing facilities making APIs that supply the U.S. Academia is playing a large role with industry and other regulatory agencies to help the FDA identify potential market are based in this country. regulatory hurdles to adopt advanced manufacturing, according to Woodcock. In 2018, the FDA awarded eight Vulnerable Supplies grants to universities and nonprofit organizations to “The fact that so many of our drug products are made “study and recommend improvements for the continuous overseas creates a vulnerability in the U.S. supply,” said manufacturing of drugs and biological products as well Dr. Fernando J. Muzzio, director, National Science as similar innovative monitoring and control techniques,” Foundation/Engineering Research Center on Structured she said.

Organic Particulate Systems, and distinguished professor, chemical and biochemical engineering, Rutgers University. “The supply chain can be disrupted for lasting shortages. This is a real issue both with shortages caused by emerging quality problems and with the ability to respond quickly to emerging threats.”

Muzzio has worked for years with the National Institute for Pharmaceutical Technology & Education, a proponent of the advanced manufacturing processes with one

The FDA is working with academia and industry to identify new research areas for advanced manufacturing.

FDA laboratories also have conducted advanced manufacturing research and established a Center of Excellence for Manufacturing Science and Innovation to coordinate internal advances in manufacturing research for both small molecules and biologics.

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campus connection

“There is a tremendous potential to draw together subject matter experts in the academic world and being able to connect those experts to either industry or other regulatory agencies…to address some of the grand challenges as we move forward. We’re able to have collaborations and partnerships with members to draw together on their collective expertise.” ­—Dr. Eric Barker

As NIPTE collaborates with the FDA, the organization is also emphasizing the need to overcome workforce shortages in pharmaceutical sciences, according to Gurvich. “That was a big concern for the FDA several years ago and they couldn’t find enough qualified people with appropriate training in pharmaceutical sciences,” Gurvich recalled. “That led them to us, and they approached us to develop a training and certification program, which is very much a work in progress.”

improved mechanisms to manufacture and deliver generic drugs into the U.S. market. That market has been saddled by regulatory woes and much production overseas.

“The efficiency of the generic drug product system is quite low,” Gurvich said. “We noticed that about 60 percent of the drugs that are marketed by brand companies are not making it to generics. And that has caught our attention. That feeds into our priorities.

It’s extremely important. It affects the drug supply, the quality of drugs, all sorts of things.”

There is irony in the work. As Gurvich and his team strive to improve pharmaceutical manufacturing in this country, Part of the organization’s strategy to “if it starts coming back to the U.S., improve access to generic drugs is the industry will face shortages in the wrapped around the words “new” and workforce and that is another concern,” “prior knowledge.”

Gurvich said NIPTE he said. “At NIPTE we discussed the is pushing to highlight the distinction situation, and (seek) to recalibrate education programs to solve that problem.” between the information that may involve proprietary and trade secrets and available knowledge in the public More Accessible Generic domain. Using that prior knowledge, he Drugs noted, can accelerate development and Even before the alarm over the spread commercialization of generic drugs. of coronavirus throughout the world this past winter, NIPTE researchers began stepping up their research into

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As an example of “new” and “old,” NIPTE published a paper last year

titled “Pharmaceutical New Prior Knowledge: Twenty-First Century Assurance of Therapeutic Equivalence” that referred to manufacturer Apotex’s formulation of a nasal spray product, which used a different drug formulation so as not to infringe on a previous product’s unexpired patent. Years later, the situation changed: The FDA approved the generic version of the drug after the patent’s expiration. “Clearly during this review process, the FDA had access to previously disclosed” information, the paper states. Ultimately, it points to a “need for NPK (new prior knowledge) efforts to bridge the gaps between research to policy and policy to practice,” according to the authors.

Using the terms “new” and “prior knowledge,” Gurvich said, “sounds like an oxymoron. It may be a little bit provocative or paradoxical. But it needs to be taken up by public-private partnerships. NIPTE can be a partner and we had this discussion and talked to the FDA and the idea is we will have the scientific firepower to make a significant impact.”

campus connection

NIPTE representatives, including Dr. Vadim Gurvich (second from left), Dr. Fernando Muzzio (third from left) and Dr. Kenneth Morris (second from right) attended a congressional briefing last year focused on new prior knowledge.

Gurvich and other NIPTE leaders said their work comes at a crucial time: It occurs as the pharmaceutical industry is facing increased pricing pressures globally amid rising manufacturing costs. Drug quality also is under scrutiny, with so many drugs manufactured in China and India, where there also is concern about quality.

NIPTE was launched when funding for pharmaceutical science started to flatten, Gurvich said. Academic pharmaceutical science “was in decline domestically. NIPTE helped to slow that process, but it’s still in decline,” he said.

“The perception among academics was there was no funding source or govern-

ment funding source that you could go to if you were working in pharmaceutical manufacturing,” according to the Journal of the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists, which reviewed the impact of NIPTE on academic research. The paper stated, “It seems that the landscape was right for a collaborative effort to expand public sector research efforts in this discipline.”

Gurvich said he’s hoping to add more universities to NIPTE and is excited about the possibilities of moving forward in pharmaceutical science, advanced manufacturing techniques and making inroads into generic production and gaining more funding.

Without rejuvenated pharmaceutical manufacturing, “the American public will face shortages of drugs and medications,” Gurvich said. Ultimately, “research itself is not the goal, it needs to have a purpose. There is a purpose— to help the patients, to help the public, and this is our chance to do it on a very big scale,” Gurvich said. “Everybody will benefit: patients, students, the general public. It’s one of those winwin-win situations.” P Joseph A. Cantlupe is a freelance writer based in Washington, D.C.

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community impact

Ohio State Pharmacy Professor Appointed to WHO Antimicrobial Stewardship Program Pharmacists can play a more prominent role in helping healthcare facilities in lower-income countries ward off antimicrobial resistance.

Dr. Debra Goff, an associate profesin helping healthcare facilities ward off When helping to develop the toolkit, sor of pharmacy practice and science antimicrobial resistance (AMR). Three Goff said that she focused on scaling at The Ohio State University College other Americans—all physicians—were up the role pharmacists play in the of Pharmacy and an infectious disease selected to join the team.

AMS strategies being proposed. “The specialist and clinical pharmacist at pharmacists in many of these counGoff’s background in AMR, including The Ohio State University Wexner tries have the knowledge, but they’re her efforts co-founding the antimiMedical Center, was selected by the not empowered to do anything besides crobial stewardship program at the World Health Organization (WHO) dispense and replace ward stock,” Goff Ohio State Wexner Medical Center to be one of 25 global experts who said. “This toolkit is going to show and leading The Ohio State University will help healthcare professionals them how a pharmacist has the drug —South Africa Antibiotic Stewardship and government leaders in low- and therapy knowledge to make interven“Train-the-Trainer” mentorship promiddle-income countries implement tions and how they are going to add gram, qualified her to voluntarily help antimicrobial stewardship (AMS) plans that into their existing day—and add WHO develop the toolkit over the last based on a toolkit WHO published in this additional responsibility to impact year and a half. The toolkit provides October 2019. Goff will serve as the patient care.” guidance on how to improve antibiotic only American pharmacist, and one of prescribing practices and perform AMS two pharmacists, on the team who will interventions to reduce the risk of AMR. focus on the role pharmacists can play Learn More To read Antimicrobial stewardship programmes in health-care facilities in lowand middle-income countries: a WHO practical toolkit, visit https://apps.who.int/iris/ handle/10665/329404.

A N T I M I C R O B I A L S T E WA R D S H I P P R O G R A M M E S I N H E A LT H - C A R E FA C I L I T I E S I N L O W - A N D MIDDLE-INCOME COUNTRIES

A WHO PRACTICAL TOOLKIT

ANTIMICROBIAL STEWARDSHIP

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community impact

Goff’s experiences with AMS training programs in South Africa and in other countries have prepared her for challenges that may lie ahead in the WHO initiative. “In most countries, there aren’t enough pharmacists, physicians or nurses, and so you have to take the existing workforce and scale up their knowledge,” she said.

Another barrier Goff anticipates is altering the sometimes decades-old prescribing habits of physicians.

“When you perceive you’ve done no harm to a patient, it’s really hard to try to change your instinct to prescribe. But we’re running out of effective antibiotics; resistance rates are escalating around the world,” she said.

Goff points to the overuse of antibiotics and a decline in the development of new antibiotics as driving a global crisis of AMR that is particularly devastating to low-resource parts of the world. “It’s so encouraging to see this very specific toolkit for low- and middle-income countries be released, and have teams of experts that know how to execute this no matter what the barriers are,” she said. “We’re done talking about it, we need action, and that’s what this toolkit and this initiative are allowing us to do. We are going to those countries and we are going to teach them one-on-one how to do this.” P Reprinted with permission from The Ohio State University College of Pharmacy.

“The pharmacists in many of these countries have the knowledge, but they’re not empowered to do anything besides dispense and replace ward stock. This toolkit is going to show them how a pharmacist has the drug therapy knowledge to make interventions and how they are going to add that into their existing day—and add this additional responsibility to impact patient care.” ­—Dr. Debra Goff

Buffalo Pharmacy Professor Receives NIH Grant to Research Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria Dr. Brian Tsuji, professor of pharmacy practice and associate dean for clinical and translational sciences at the University at Buffalo School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, is the principal investigator on a five-year, $3.92 million R01 grant from the National Institutes of Health to continue his groundbreaking research to fight antibiotic-resistant bacteria. The grant, titled “Novel Strategies for Antibiotic Combinations to combat Gram-negative Superbugs,” is the second-largest R01 NIH grant in the history of the School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, the first being Tsuji’s 2014 $4.4 million grant to develop new dosing regimens for polymyxin antibiotics.

Multidrug-resistant bacteria have been classified as an urgent public health threat in the United States and around the globe. These bacteria are resistant to all current antibiotics and can cause a variety of diseases, from pneumonia and other respiratory infections, to serious

blood or wound infections. Tsuji’s superbug research, which has been continuously funded by the NIH since 2008, investigates optimizing drug combinations to maximize antibacterial activity and minimize resistance and toxicity.

“Our team of amazing students and scientists worked very hard to generate both mechanistic and clinical data to demonstrate new ways of how to use our existing antibiotics to combat resistance,” Tsuji said. The project is co-led by Jürgen Bernd Bulitta, an associate professor in the Department of Pharmacotherapy and Translational Research at the University of Florida College of Pharmacy. Clinical Associate Professor Dr. Raymond Cha also played a critical role providing new clinical perspectives into antibiotic selection for critically ill patients infected with these difficult to treat infections. P Reprinted with permission from the University at Buffalo School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences.

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community impact

Driving Discovery Collaborating with industry, pharmacy schools are turning academic findings into commercial products.

By Athena Ponushis Schools of pharmacy are moving biomedical technologies from the lab to the market, turning novel discoveries into better health for their communities. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is helping schools do this, awarding grants to connect scientists to investors, which connects to the overall goal of identifying innovative promising technologies and advancing them toward commercialization.

Scientists see how to navigate commercialization, while investors find the best ideas for health products.

The NIH Centers for Accelerated Innovations (NCAI) and NIH Research Evaluation and Commercialization Hubs (REACH) combine the strengths of academia, the federal government and the private sector, speeding up the development of scientific breakthroughs into commercial products.

Last October, the NIH announced it was awarding $20 million to fund five new hubs to further accelerate the translation of academic discoveries into new drugs, devices, diagnostics and therapeutics, so such discoveries can reach the people who need them.

“The NIH realized they could not just fund the work for the discovery itself, but they had to facilitate the commercialization of the discovery into an actual product,” said Dr. Linda Dwoskin, professor of pharmaceutical sciences at the University of Kentucky College of Pharmacy. “That’s a huge step that was needed for a long time and I am so

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happy that it’s happening now because “Biomedical research is very good but it I think a lot more discoveries won’t just can only help people when the results fade away, they will actually make it to of that research are commercialized,” people.” said Dr. Vadim Gurvich, associate director of the Institute for Therapeutics The University of Kentucky was named Discovery and Development and coone of the new REACH awardees, leadprincipal investigator for the University ing the Kentucky Network for Innovaof Minnesota REACH award. “So the tion & Commercialization (KYNETIC), whole idea, at least in our hub, we saw a public-private consortium involving the money as one part of it, but the the University of Louisville and other bigger issue was changing the faculty academic institutions, as well as the mindset, helping them realize that unKentucky Cabinet for Economic Develless their inventions are commercialopment. Other awardees included the ized, they cannot really help anybody.”

Rutgers Optimizes Innovation (ROI) Program; Midwest Biomedical Accelera- Nurturing Innovators With tor Consortium (MBArC), a collaboraMentors tion between the University of Missouri Last December, REACH award recipiand the University of Kansas; Colorado ents gathered at a NIH launch meeting, Anschutz Medical Campus REACH and Dwoskin, a co-principal investigaHub; and the Washington Entrepretor on Kentucky’s award, saw the story neurial REACH Hub, a partnership unfold of how a professor’s idea was between the University of Washington commercialized and saved a baby boy. and the Seattle Children’s Center.

The product helped treat pulmonary The new hubs are scouting for biomedical projects and product development experts are sifting through the search.

Hubs will fund projects that look promising, providing entrepreneurial education and project management support, helping academic innovators validate the impact of their discoveries and bring their technologies to market.

While new hubs are eager to translate their research, older hubs founded in 2015 have already felt the benefit of the REACH award, and as their projects move into clinical trials, they are working commercialization into their culture.

hypertension in newborns by creating a new delivery system to change how babies receive nitric oxide therapy. The company, Third Pole Therapeutics, attended the meeting to discuss their work, as did a young man who received nitric oxide through such means to help him breathe as a baby. Dwoskin said the story was impressive and inspiring, speaking to all the REACH award aims to do: “Improve human health from an academic discovery.”

It’s too early for Dwoskin to discuss outcomes or elaborate on what projects are in the KYNETIC pipeline (sub-

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mitted projects are under review and selections will be funded in July) but she can expand on the aim: “The goal is to nurture innovations and innovators by providing funding, mentoring and education, introducing innovators to a network of relevant expertise to move products that have potential to improve human health across the divide.”

Achieving that goal rests on partnerships. “Our project is to network with the entire state and make everyone partners in this endeavor,” Dwoskin said. “When the state is behind the effort it makes a tremendous difference.”

KYNETIC will receive $4 million from the NIH and the state will contribute $450,000 per year for the four-year project.

business community that they would not have any other way.”

A Culture of Commercialization Dr. Carolyn Fairbanks, professor and associate dean for research at the University of Minnesota College of Pharmacy, has felt the benefit of the REACH award as a faculty member recipient. “It provided a catalyst to do the bread-and-butter work that can be hard to find funding for, but important to meet those milestone

“The goal is to nurture innovations and innovators by providing funding, mentoring and education, introducing innovators to a network of relevant expertise to move products that have potential to improve human health across the divide.”

REACH success stories range from treating brain tumors to developing snoring apps, as the program has funded over 150 technologies. One product advancing from the University of Louisville’s last round of REACH funding is a baby bottle that can record a mother singing to help a baby who may have trouble feeding. The bottle, which has a feeding sensor and musical app, was the result of a music therapist/pro­—Dr. Linda Dwoskin fessor working with a speech-language pathologist, using music to encoursteps to attract industrial partners or age little ones who may be hesitant to other investments to move it along the drink from a bottle. “I thought that was pipeline for commercialization and pretty amazing,” Dwoskin said. “Anultimately, human use,” Fairbanks said. other example of how inspiring collabo“The mentoring and business training ration can be.” was unique and transformative.”

Such innovative collaborations make Fairbanks was involved in two MNit to the private sector because of the REACH supported projects. One mentorship opportunities inherent in project focused on an analgesic that the REACH hub design. “Innovators are she and her team learned was effective going to learn how to write a proposal for pain relief in a variety of conditions, that’s different from the grants they but not likely to have abuse potential typically write,” Dwoskin said. “They like opioids. While she had preliminary are going to learn how to do a short data that suggested that, she was not pitch in front of investors. They are able to take her assessments to the next going to have a lot of connections to the level until REACH allowed her to do

the pharmacokinetic studies to engage industrial partners, who are now working with Fairbanks on the next step.

Her second project focused on another analgesic that she thinks may be more attractive for its treatment of both chronic pain and drug addiction. “It works on the same mechanisms in the brain and so we may have a dually effective compound,” Fairbanks said. “That’s the goal.” REACH enabled her team to do the experiments that became part of an application that resulted in favorable review by the Department of Defense, which has awarded more money to conduct safety and toxicity studies, the last step before clinical trial in humans.

A third MN-REACH project allowed Fairbanks’ colleagues at the college of pharmacy to make progress on a concept regarding the intranasal delivery of anti-epileptic drugs. Faculty were able to move from in vitro studies to in vivo studies, which has attracted the collaboration of a company interested in developing it into a nasal spray for both human and veterinary epilepsy medications.

“We might have been able to do this work with philanthropy, but having the excitement and engagement of our mentors has really been accelerating for us,” Fairbanks said. “It has helped us to better understand and strategize our next steps.”

Therein lies the impetus for the cultural shift at the University of Minnesota.

“Support commercialization, that’s my message to deans,” Gurvich said. “Invest in commercialization. That is very important because the NIH programs are good, but once they come to the end, what do you do? That’s the dilemma we are facing right now. We are figuring out how to sustain it.” P Athena Ponushis is a freelance writer based in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.

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Care That Encompasses Every Community Pharmacy schools are focused on providing accessible healthcare to underserved populations.

By Jane E. Rooney

How do most Americans receive healthcare? The answer used to be fairly straightforward: people would see a physician for checkups, go to the pharmacy for prescriptions and visit the hospital only in the event of an emergency or major procedure such as surgery. But increasingly, access to care across the United States is taking a different direction, with shifts in providers’ responsibilities and their roles in caring for patients not as clearly delineated as they once were. Particularly for patients in underserved communities—rural or urban areas, for instance—the pharmacist is often the most accessible provider.

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A 2019 poll by NPR, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health found that one out of every four people living in rural areas said they couldn’t get the healthcare they needed. As of December 2018, there were more than 7,000 areas in the U.S. with health professional shortages, nearly 60 percent of which were in rural areas. Since 2010, 113 rural hospitals across the country have closed. An article that appeared last year in The Conversation noted, “Each time a rural hospital closes, there are tragic consequences for the local community and surrounding counties. While the medical consequences are the most obvious, there is also loss of sales tax revenue, reduction in supporting businesses such as pharmacies and clinics. There are also fewer professionals, including doctors, nurses and pharmacists, and fewer students in local schools.”

Disparities in access often prevent patients in underserved communities from receiving needed care. “Pharmacies are less accessible and there are fewer in low-income and minority neighborhoods. Closures are more common in underserved urban areas,” noted Dr. Dima Qato, associate professor, Department of Pharmacy Systems, Outcomes and Policy, University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) College of Pharmacy, and current National Academy of Medicine Pharmacy Fellow. “In Chicago, you see that the number of pharmacies is growing but there are fewer available in low-income, predominately minority neighborhoods. Rural closures are also a challenge but many rural states have some policy in place to incentivize pharmacies to stay open. Those incentives don’t exist in urban areas. If we’re trying to address health disparities, we really have to think about pharmacy access in minority neighborhoods in large cities.”

Qato emphasized that conversations around improving access to care need to acknowledge that while pharmacists are accessible, we need to be doing more. “Even when the pharmacy is available it doesn’t mean the pharmacist is free,” she said. “We can’t just say most people live within a mile of a pharmacy—if the pharmacist isn’t available to help the patient and answer questions, they’re really not available.

We have to think beyond pharmacy availability to pharmacist availability and awareness of what policies are in place in the state in terms of what pharmacists can and cannot do.”

Pharmacy schools are preparing future pharmacists to reach out to underserved communities with innovative programs focused on providing care in rural and urban areas to ensure that all populations have access to quality healthcare.

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Reaching Out to Rural Areas In Perry County, Alabama, a predominately African-American community, the household income is roughly half the national average and rates of cardiovascular disease are alarmingly high. This spurred a former dean of the Samford University McWhorter School of Pharmacy to partner with Sowing Seeds of Hope, a nonprofit organization, to launch the Perry County Outreach program in 2006. “We work with patients on disease state management and helping them reduce the risk of heart attack or stroke, and the care we provide is absolutely free,” said Dr. Pilar Murphy, associate professor, Department of Pharmacy Practice, who—with help from her students—runs the Cardiovascular Risk Reduction Clinic (also known as the Hypertension Clinic). The rural clinical rotation, a five-week APPE for students in their senior year, allows them to practice ambulatory care in the hypertension clinic and in a rural health clinic.

“When patients come in the students work them up as if they were working in a doctor’s office,” Murphy explained. “They do a medication review with each patient, looking to see if they are at goal for their disease states, they weigh them, calculate their BMI, check blood pressure in each arm, talk to the patient. They review goals and where things are. If they find something they will notify the patient’s primary care physician and offer a recommendation if needed. We recently had a patient with uncontrolled blood pressure who also has diabetes. So the students are looking at guidelines and what they can do to help intervene and get the patient to goal. Or there may be a drug reaction the provider doesn’t know about and the student will recommend monitoring that.”

“The goal is to develop a group of future healthcare professionals dedicated to caring for urban, underserved populations and who are committed to interprofessional teamwork and the value of each profession. Our curriculum also places strong emphasis on public health and primary care as a career pathway.”

—Dr. Devra Dang

In the rural health clinic, a nurse debriefs students before they participate in the patient interview, talk with the provider about a care plan and counsel the patient about how to get the best benefit from their medication. “The students are on an interprofessional team when they are working at the rural health clinics,” Murphy noted.

She said a key element in student pharmacists’ training is learning to meet patients where they are. During the rotation orientation, “on the first day we go through the patient care process and also talk about health literacy to make sure they aren’t using language people can’t understand. We have some patients who are living on $785 a month. For most students that’s unfathomable. We talk about why people don’t make the choices we want them to make, and a lot of times that has to do with finances. [They practice talking to] a patient and interview me to realize the words they use, the

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questions they ask, and I help them learn how to reword and rephrase and make a measureable plan with the patient.”

With area hospitals closing, Murphy said patients in the community are definitely turning to pharmacists more often for care. “Affordable access is so hard. People are having to rely on pharmacists a lot more, not even just in rural areas,” she acknowledged. “Some of our patients don’t even think of the students as pharmacists, they think of them as doctors.

It helps patients to see the breadth of knowledge our students have. Our students really get to help people and this work shows everything that a pharmacist can do.”

Dr. Devra Dang works with students in the Urban Service Track at the University of Connecticut. These students spend part of their final year training at a clinic providing patient care.

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At the Appalachian College of Pharmacy, the Pharmacists in Community Service (PICS) program has been woven into the curriculum since 2005. It reflects the institution’s mission to give back to the community and instill in students the importance of volunteerism. PICS is a mandatory part of the Doctor of Pharmacy program and requires that all students complete 150 hours of community service over three years. “Opportunities to interact with patients are pretty numerous and diverse,” said Sharon Deel, coordinator of community outreach. “Students do blood pressure checks, blood glucose screening, we have a smoking cessation group…but

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they also have general volunteer hours. They may help coach a little league sport or work with after-school programs.”

Interactions with patients in the rural community “help students become more confident with their communication skills and knowledge base and increase their awareness of the challenges we face in a medically underserved area.

It also teaches them how to educate patients about their diseases and associated therapy,” Deel said. With limited resources in the area, especially specialized medical services, “pharmacists play a vital role in providing MTM and screenings, so many patients seek their help with understanding their treatment program. This is especially true with hypertension and diabetes. We continue to educate the community on the role of chronic disease and the role the pharmacist can play in improving patient outcomes,” she added.

“Pharmacists are our nation’s most trusted healthcare professional and one of the most accessible providers here,” she continued. “They have trained in diverse patient care settings. They have a lot to offer patients trying to navigate these facets of our healthcare systems.” With local patients facing barriers such as low health literacy or financial and transportation limitations, Deel said the curriculum emphasizes communication skills. “We make sure students have an understanding of how to talk to patients about their disease in a way that’s easy for the patient to understand.”

Through reflective essays that students write upon completing PICS, Deel said it’s clear that they believe the program makes a positive impact in helping them understand the challenges that rural patients face. “Students enjoy working with patients one on one and it really increases their comfort level as well. Many students go back to their communities once they graduate to do wellness screenings or educate patients,” she noted. This desire to help underserved communities is what Dean Susan Mayhew said the college strives to emphasize: “If we create habits of volunteerism throughout their professional development, then hopefully it will become second nature to them once they become licensed pharmacists. Since we attract students from all over the United States and beyond, the impact of this unique program is felt locally, regionally and nationally.”

Combating Health Disparities in Cities The University of Connecticut School of Pharmacy identified the need for an Urban Service Track (UST) in 2004. Knowing they wanted the program to be interprofessional, the founding faculty representing the pharmacy, medical, nursing and dental schools worked together to plan the curriculum that began with its first cohort of students in fall 2007.

Pharm.D. students at the Appalachian College of Pharmacy participate in the Pharmacists in Community Service program, interacting with patients in various settings in the rural community.

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Urban Service Track pharmacy students work with medical residents to perform patient interviews and assessments.

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“Affordable access is so hard. People are having to rely on pharmacists a lot more, not even just in rural areas. Some of our patients don’t even think of the students as pharmacists, they think of them as doctors. It helps patients to see the breadth of knowledge our students have.”

—Dr. Pilar Murphy

The curriculum has since expanded to include the UConn School of Social Work and the Quinnipiac University’s physician assistant program.

outreach activities. This broadens the students’ interprofessional exposure as well as helps us provide even better services in our outreach efforts.”

“As clinicians working in urban primary care clinics in Hartford, we were acutely aware of the many medical and psychosocial challenges that our patients face each year,” said Dr. Devra Dang, associate clinical professor at the School of Pharmacy and faculty advisor for students in the Urban Service Track curriculum. “Connecticut is typically described as a state of the ‘haves and have nots.’

We are consistently ranked in the top three richest states per capita in the U.S. and one of the healthiest by many measures. But if you look closer, our urban cities also have some of the highest rates of health disparities in the country. The capital, Hartford, is one of the poorest cities of its size and has one of the highest rates of pediatric asthma in the country, for example. The need to train future healthcare professionals who can provide comprehensive, compassionate medical and psychosocial care using a team approach, instead of the traditional silos structure at that time, was very clear to the founding faculty.”

The curriculum includes learning retreats that focus on different vulnerable populations and the health and psychosocial needs of those groups. “The learning retreats include interactions with faculty, community clinicians and staff from social services organizations who are experts in working with that population, and also actual community members/patients from that population when available,” Dang explained. “In between learning retreats, students implement what they learn by running health-related community outreach programs for urban and underserved populations throughout Connecticut.” A newer outreach project called the Going Beyond Initiative brings health education and screening topics, in the form of health fairs, to populations that UST has not reached previously through regular channels of community outreach activities such as immigrant and refugee populations. “Working with these groups not only brings much needed health education to these populations but also definitely challenges the students’ communication and cultural sensitivity abilities, which is a good thing,” she said.

Each year, UST Scholars and faculty run more than 60 community outreach events reaching several thousand of the state’s neediest citizens. “The activities are quite varied but center around health education on a large number of topics: basic health screenings, career awareness initiatives to children and teens from underserved populations and direct patient care experiences in their APPE year,” Dang noted. “All experiences are interprofessional. In recent years I have even reached out to professions outside of UST, for example the Audiology and Physical Therapy programs at UConn, and included them in some of our

Dang hopes the UST curriculum helps students from all professions understand the contribution of pharmacists in the primary care setting. “The goal is to develop a group of future healthcare professionals dedicated to caring for urban, underserved populations and who are committed to interprofessional teamwork and the value of each profession. Our curriculum also places strong emphasis on public health and primary care as a career pathway.” Feedback indicates that the program is meeting these goals.

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UW–Madison Focuses on Rural Health Challenges The University of Wisconsin–Madison School of Pharmacy introduced a Rural Pharmacy Practice concentration in the Pharm.D. program, which began with the fall 2019 semester. The option is open to third-year Pharm.D. students, who will take courses specializing in rural health, project management and service implementation. In their fourth year, students will have at least two of their APPEs in rural settings or choose the school’s rural-focused residency-track APPE and complete the majority of their eight rotations in a rural environment.

“Rural pharmacists are uniquely positioned to produce positive change in rural communities, where there might be only one or two physicians and one hospital,” said Dr. Ed Portillo, assistant professor in the school’s Pharmacy Practice Division, who is leading the new program in conjunction with a faculty committee. “If you connect with the right people, you can really drive change forward and be a community leader.”

Faculty consulted with the Wisconsin Rural Health Collaborative, the Wisconsin Academy for Rural Medicine and the Wisconsin Office of Rural Health, as well as alumni and current students to develop the coursework and direction. “We’re continuing to see a need to improve healthcare across the country, in urban areas as well as rural,” said Portillo. “And it so happens that over 90 percent of the landmass in Wisconsin is rural, so we developed a high-impact program to get our students to be the practitioners to go into rural communities, understand how they can advocate for patients and develop change.” As the Rural Pharmacy Practice option in the Pharm.D. program continues to develop, Portillo hopes to add an interprofessional APPE that would help students get more comfortable with working on a care team. Going forward, he also hopes to partner with more Wisconsin health systems to broaden students’ opportunities for the Practice Innovations course. P For more information, visit https://pharmacy.wisc.edu/ new-rural-health-pharmd-option/.

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“I’ve had so many faculty and preceptors tell me over the years that they could always tell when they have an Urban Service Track Scholar on rotation because that student immediately knows how to interact with the team and with patients from underserved backgrounds even on the first day of the first APPE of the academic year,” she noted.

“The students are comfortable being an assertive and active member of the team and are not afraid to take on ‘tough’ patients. This feedback comes not just from pharmacy preceptors but from those from medicine and the other professions as well.”

Ensuring that underserved populations have access to care from an interprofessional team is crucial. “We know that the complexity of healthcare means that it needs to be a team sport and that pharmacists are the medication experts on the team,” Dang pointed out. “Pharmacists are especially needed when working with underserved patient populations as they tend to have more medications and medical conditions, have greater health needs in general but are challenged by psychosocial barriers, and are more vulnerable to medication safety and efficacy concerns.”

Easier Access Across the Spectrum UIC’s Qato said improving healthcare access begins with preparing student pharmacists to work with underserved populations. “Education needs to include training around barriers that affect medication use, whether it’s access or safety or MTM issues that are outside the clinical setting.

It’s also thinking about what does a patient experience before they come to the pharmacy?” she said. “What can you do about adherence? What can we do within the health system to address impaired access to medication to patients affected by closures? It requires a discussion among multiple stakeholders. What are large retailers doing when a pharmacy closes? There should be more effort around outreach and awareness. We need to think creatively about these target populations.”

Qato does see telehealth/telepharmacy as one potential solution to addressing barriers that some populations face.

“It could be pharmacy technicians and pharmacists working with technology to counsel patients in their homes,” she noted. “For those solutions to work, we need to consider the preferences of the local population, so it’s not a blanket solution. If you are trying to address access with a patient who is homebound, telepharmacy may or may not be helpful.” Appalachian College of Pharmacy’s Deel said they are considering telehealth options for uninsured patients. In addition, “access to mental healthcare is a huge challenge

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“Pharmacists play a vital role in providing MTM and screenings, so many patients seek their help with understanding their treatment program. This is especially true with hypertension and diabetes.

We continue to educate the community on the role of chronic disease and the role the pharmacist can play in improving patient outcomes.”

—Sharon Deel

One of Dang’s Pharm.D. 2019 students comprehensively evaluates a patient and collaborates with clinic healthcare professionals on recommended interventions.

in this area and hopefully one we can explore and bring to table for the future with telehealth,” Deel said.

For Murphy, the Perry County APPE and work of student organizations imparts something that will be invaluable to future pharmacists in any healthcare setting: empathy. “It “Pharmacies matter and have the potential to improve access amazes me how much students change over those five weeks but a lot needs to be done,” Qato said. “We need more inteof really being able to put themselves in a person’s shoes,” she gration within pharmacies and communities and patients pointed out. “They are seeing how something like transporthey serve. It’s so fragmented. We’re good at developing tation can be a major issue. I hope when students leave that policies but not always good at implementing them. There is they carry that mindset forward. Will you still make time to no mandate in terms of pharmacy services or pharmacy care. say, ‘there may be a good coupon out there that can help you’ We’re not always thinking at the systems level and I think or similar types of questions.” we need to if we really want to have an impact.”

She said that in students’ written reflections on service-based Pharmacy schools that underscore health disparities in learning at the end of the rotation, one sentiment continurban and rural settings are on the right track, she said. “We ues to pop up. “They say, ‘it made me see what it looks like need to be thinking about social determinants of health in to be a really good pharmacist,’” Murphy noted. “I hope it our curriculum, and not just through one lecture. It’s imporhelps them see there’s always opportunity for them to give tant to engage student pharmacists in the process of care back. Students continue to say that this rotation is one of the outside the clinic. We could use more public service projects biggest learning experiences they have had because they are that get students exposed to how people live and how that getting so much hands-on time with patients.” P could affect their access and use of care.”

Jane E. Rooney is managing editor of Academic Pharmacy Now.

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@AACPharmacy

Hitting a Second Wind INsight 2020 provided attendees a chance to recharge with new connections, strategies and perspectives from Puerto Rico.

Why is change necessary? What needs to change within an organization to shift its culture? Dr. Noel E. Wilkin, provost and executive vice chancellor for academic affairs, professor and research professor at The University of Mississippi, kicked off programming at INsight 2020 by exploring the questions needed to facilitate effective change.

February 8–11, 2020

Wyndham Grand Rio Mar Puerto Rico Golf & Beach Resort

“Most organizations don’t spend any time thinking about what needs to happen below the water-line,” he said, referring to Torben Rick’s “Iceberg” of organizational culture. Later asking the audience to find which direction was north without the use of a compass, Wilkin demonstrated the ways employees try to “find their bearings” within a culture: whether seeing which way others in the audience were turning, trying to find external markers and more.

On Sunday, Rear Admiral Pamela Schweitzer underscored her keynote with an anecdote from a recent outdoor adventure: Hiking Mount Shasta, elevation 14,179 feet, was proving difficult until she hit an unexpected burst of energy in the form of a “second wind.” From her perspective as the retired assistant surgeon general and chief pharmacist officer of the U.S. Public Health Service, this is something the profession of pharmacy needed to keep pace with changes in healthcare.

“Filling prescriptions is not going to be [the future of the profession]. There’s some transformation going on—but it’s moving slow. We can make this go way faster if we all work together.”

Río Grande, Puerto Rico, proved a fitting backdrop for changing perspectives at INsight 2020, contrasting with the winter weather in the continental U.S. Social media highlighted some of these view-changing presentations, on topics ranging from leading culture change to developing interprofessional practice teams.

AACP greatly appreciates the support from our meeting sponsors, whose contributions made this event possible: Educational Day Sponsor

Silver Sponsor

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@AACPharmacy

Tweets @TweetTheADean: @pschwei54 To advance pharmacy: focus on the payer, refer to pharmacists as “pharmacist practitioner”, write ROI studies, provide metrics, increase entrepreneurial activities, train students as leaders & make path clear for driving regulatory change, learn payer models #interim20 @AACPharmacy: Share positive experiences: Ask trainees or team members to reflect on whose life, specifically, was improved because each of you went to work that day.

“People forget they’re saving lives and teaching the next generation, doing cool things!” says Dr. Merlo. #INterim20 @Richard1Cynthia: Interesting debate on whether US national licensing exams should include an OSCE at the @AACPharmacy interim meeting #INterim20

@carolineewelles: Collaborating virtually is a MUST in @Pharm_Alliance, but nothing replaces face to face meetings! It was great to catch up with the team and discuss our model at @AACPharmacy #INterim20

@AACPharmacy: #INterim20 Town Hall: As part of his bold aims, @tsorensenrx poses to #physicians: Do you know a #pharmacist by name?

Would you say you co-manage patients with them?

Do you believe that relationship positively supports your work-life and improves the lives of the patient?

@MandyONeill_PhD: When was the last time you had a belly laugh with colleagues?

Loved watching @AACPharmacy #INterim20 share their stories. @azertuchec: I had a wonderful time giving my presentation “Transform Your Data into Timely Insights and Actionable Plans for Student Success” at the AACP Interim meeting. Thanks to everyone who came out to learn how to make their #data actionable. #Interim20 #Enflux

@David_Steeb: What are the top reasons for @Pharm_Alliance faculty to be engaged in collaboration? Most say research, networking opportunities, and grant funding. #INterim20

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Pharmacists Help People Live Healthier, Better Lives.

1400 Crystal Drive, Suite 300 P Arlington, VA 22202 703-739-2330 P www.aacp.org

Connect with Best Practices Through AACP Webinars AACP hosts informative and educational webinars presented by AACP and members of our Sections and Special Interest Groups throughout the year. Now you can view all upcoming webinars in the new Webinar Community within AACP Connect. (bit.ly/AACPConnectWebinar) Promote your webinar by posting the event’s information to the discussion board and access all webinar recordings and slides in the Community library. You can also share ideas with colleagues especially as it relates to collaborative webinars between Sections and SIGs. Be sure to check out the 2020 CE Webinar Series: The Role of Interprofessional Education (IPE) and Interprofessional Practice (IPP) in Practice Transformation bit.ly/TransformPracticeWebinar April 16: 2:00 p.m.–3:00 p.m. ET Finding the Path Forward: Aiding Practice Transformation Through A Focus on Professional Identity Formation (PIF) In Pharmacy Education bit.ly/ProfessionalIdentityWebinar May 19: 2:00 p.m.–3:00 p.m. ET

What You Should Know About CPESN, ACT Pharmacy Collaborative and FtP (Flip the Pharmacy)–Initiatives to Transform Community-Based Pharmacy Practice bit.ly/TransformCommunityPracticeWebinar June 10: 1:00 p.m.–2:00 p.m. ET