Academic Pharmacy Now: 2020 Issue 5

Academic Pharmacy

The News Magazine of the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy

NOW

Volume 13 2020 Issue 5

EXpanding Horizons AACP is facilitating international relationships to help schools advance global pharmacy education. 16

Also in this issue: Raising Pharmacists’ Awareness About Domestic Violence 10 Telehealth Takes Off 12

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

Jane E. Rooney

Letters to the Editor

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.

Editorial Assistant

Kyle R. Bagin

Communications Advisor

Stephanie Saunders Fouch

Change of Address

For address changes, contact LaToya Casteel, Member Services Manager, at lcasteel@aacp.org. ©2020 by the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy. All rights reserved. Content may not be reprinted without prior written permission.

Art Director

Tricia Gordon Digital Designer

Sean Clark

AACP’s Professional Supporter Program

Freelance Writer

Joseph Cantlupe

Promotion Supporter

Freelance Writer

Emily Jacobs

Freelance Writer

Athena Ponushis

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Academic Pharmacy NOW  2020 Issue 5

Volume 13 2020 Issue 5

@AACPharmacy a look inside

campus connection

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A Gold Standard in Geriatric Care

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A Manchester University pharmacist elevates community and emergency senior care.

Pharmacy, Post-Pandemic As the coronavirus disrupts longstanding structures, new opportunities emerge to position pharmacists as critical contributors to public health.

community impact

10

Preparing Pharmacists to Care for Patients Experiencing Domestic Abuse

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Expanding Horizons AACP is facilitating international relationships to help schools advance global pharmacy education.

Dr. Marie Barnard, recipient of an Academy on Violence and Abuse Scholars Award, advocates for pharmacists to be trained to spot domestic violence and play a bigger role in intervention.

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Telehealth Comes Calling As the healthcare landscape shifts during the pandemic, telehealth may experience a surge in pharmacy settings.

@AACPharmacy

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Upcoming Award Deadlines

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Send a Team to the Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Institute Access #VirtualPharmEd Content in 2021

Academic Pharmacy NOW  2020 Issue 5

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community note publisher’s impact

Dear Colleagues: Let me begin with a most sincere expression of appreciation for all you have done over the last nine months in navigating the chaos and concerns associated with the pandemics of 2020. First you confronted the need for abrupt and disruptive change in education, research and practice as the realities of the COVID-19 pandemic became so clear in March and April.

Campuses closed, while health systems’ policies and practices changed for both faculty and students as resources (e.g., PPE) needed to be prioritized for those working directly with the growing number of COVID cases. Research laboratories and programs were, and continue to be, directly impacted as well.

We also became more aware than most of us have ever been of the issues of structural racism across the history of the United States. Not only do we have personal responsibility as highly educated professionals to deepen our understanding and examine our roles in eliminating structural racism, as health professionals we must double down on health inequities that have become even more obvious with the disproportionate impact of the coronavirus on minority populations.

Add political tensions and global financial distress at the personal and institutional levels to these pandemics and who can wonder why everyone can’t wait for 2020 to be over and a new year to begin. In all of this I have observed some truly amazing things: •

A spirit of collaboration and group problem solving among our members, often facilitated by our governance groups (e.g., Councils, Sections and SIGs);

•

The most cohesive collaboration among state and national pharmacy organizations resulting in a unified voice articulating how pharmacists and student pharmacists can and are making a difference in the COVID pandemic response;

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The response by state and federal policymakers to expand pharmacists’ authority in testing, treating and, soon, vaccinating the population to reverse the terrible trend in COVID infections, and;

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Research progress, including a significant amount in our colleges and schools, moving at speeds not previously seen to bring vaccines and other solutions to market in record time.

AACP leaders and staff have missed the most valuable aspect of serving our nation’s colleges and schools of pharmacy, your administrators, faculty, staff and learners: networking in person at meetings large and small and building and fortifying relationships. Sure, we conducted almost every one of these sessions virtually and had excellent attendance and engagement. But I personally can’t wait to see you in person again, to learn how you have fared and to continue to build the best system of pharmacy education in the world.

Wishing you and yours safe, warm and restorative holidays as we turn the calendar page to January 2021.

Sincerely,

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

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campus connection

A Gold Standard in Geriatric Care A Manchester University pharmacist elevates community and emergency senior care.

By Linda Homewood

Dr. Teresa DeLellis, assistant professor of pharmacy practice at Manchester University, helped develop and implement new policies and protocols for senior emergency care, including data tracking and quality improvement programs. In addition to her faculty role, she also holds an appointment as a clinical pharmacy specialist in geriatrics and transitions of care at Dupont Hospital. She has been “going for the gold” since she led a compliance initiative in 2018 that earned Dupont Hospital a Bronze Level 3 Geriatric Emergency Department Accreditation.

After a rigorous process, interrupted

by COVID-19, her goal was realized in August when the hospital advanced to the highest standard: a Gold Level 1 accreditation in geriatric care. “As a clinician and educator, it has

been rewarding to help implement geriatric-based health education for the emergency department staff who worked hard to achieve this level of care,” DeLellis said. She has a clinical practice at the Fort Wayne hospital, which is the 11th in the country to achieve the Gold status.

The American College of Emergency Physicians, with support from the Gary and Mary West Health Institute and John A. Hartford Foundation, launched the accreditation program in 2018 to recognize those emergency departments that provide excellent care for older adults. For Dupont Hospital CEO Dr. Lorenzo Suter, the Level 1 transition validates the skills of Dupont’s nurses, physicians, pharmacists and technicians in treating seniors.

“Our facility is dedicated to our mature population,” said Suter. “To care for those who once cared for us is one of the highest honors.” Identified as the most vulnerable population affected by the pandemic, seniors’ healthcare quickly rose to the forefront last spring.

With board certifications in geriatric pharmacy and as a pharmacotherapy specialist, DeLellis was prepared for the challenges ahead.

Calling on Students to Help Seniors In March, DeLellis began providing telehealth prescription management services to discharged hospital patients to maximize the safety and efficacy of their medications. Working closely with a physician, she calls patients to review and fine-tune their

Student pharmacist Lauren Conway conducts a patient call to review a list of medications and relevant issues under Teresa DeLellis’ supervision and assistance.

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“Working with a new national initiative in the geriatric department process has been huge in fueling my goal of furthering quality senior care.

We’ve become one of the leaders in that program and it’s rewarding to help other hospitals to develop policies in creating their programs.”

—Dr. Teresa DeLellis

prescribed medicines. Her training in polypharmacy and deprescribing helps her identify patients who have an excessive number of prescriptions that need to be reduced.

DeLellis oversees about 18 student pharmacists each year who serve in clinical rotations at Dupont, the only hospital in the area health system with senior-specific guidelines. She tasked the students with helping to research policy and guidelines for the Gold standard achievement goals such as data tracking and clinical care objectives.

Student pharmacists also provide a medication therapy management role by helping patients understand their medications, educating them on drug safety and offering improvements as needed. The students engage in a truly multi-professional advocacy role, DeLellis noted. After reviewing medications, they confer with the physicians to discuss any issues they may find. They also help nurses with patient histories and documenting patient charts as well as educating patients about medications.

To better serve senior patients in the community, DeLellis joined a COVID-19 Senior Response Team to

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determine and respond to the highest needs as the pandemic encroached.

The local health department and an agency on aging knew that more resources would be required for extending health services to older adults who were isolating at home.

“Social isolation is a known health risk for seniors,” said DeLellis. “We provided needs priorities for getting services such as medication delivery and social connections to seniors advised to stay at home.”

First, she researched and provided a list of services to a local volunteer center that matches organizations with volunteers. Next, she recruited students (without major risk factors) who remained in the community during the COVID-19 outbreak.

DeLellis knew her pharmacy students were prepared to help having learned about patient safety and geriatric pharmacotherapy, including a transitions of care topic within her courses. She connected a dozen student pharmacists to the volunteer center, creating a perfect match for health services outreach. With their studies disrupted, students were eager to provide meaningful service in the community, practicing what they had been taught.

“They did the majority of the work— giving flu shots and making phone calls to break the isolation of so many older adults staying in place.

The students did everything from delivering medications to helping the seniors use a laptop or tablet to communicate with family,” DeLellis said. As a clinician and co-coordinator of Dupont’s geriatric program, DeLellis said being among the first hospitals to achieve the Gold accreditation positions her to help transform the health and wellness of seniors in other states. The achievement has led her to communicate and engage with hospitals in Arkansas, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Florida as well as others across Indiana.

Her ultimate goal is to improve the care and quality of life for as many older adults and their families as possible. “Working with a new national initiative in the geriatric department process has been huge in fueling my goal of furthering quality senior care.

We’ve become one of the leaders in that program and it’s rewarding to help other hospitals to develop policies in creating their programs.” P Linda Homewood, former news director at UF College of Pharmacy, is a freelance health science writer.

campus connection

Pharmacy, Post-Pandemic As the coronavirus disrupts long-standing structures, new opportunities emerge to position pharmacists as critical contributors to public health.

By Athena Ponushis

Since March, AACP has been working with other national pharmacy organizations, collaborating over weekly calls, to send a unified message to legislators and government officials: Pharmacists are ready to help combat the public health crisis.

Expand the authority of pharmacy to take full advantage of the work pharmacists are trained to do.

The greatest success the pharmacy organizations and their government relations teams have seen came in September, when the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services issued guidance authorizing pharmacists to order and administer COVID-19 vaccinations, when made available, to adults and children as young as age three, expanding access to safe and effective vaccines under the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness (PREP) Act. Now those government relations teams are working with Congress to include a provision from the Pharmacy and Medically Underserved Areas Enhancement Act (H.R. 592) in a coronavirus relief package, granting emergency Medicare provider status to pharmacists to provide COVID-19 and flu testing and get paid for it. “Our

main goal is to get this provision in a relief package at least for the duration of the public health crisis so people can see pharmacists on the front lines doing this work, see the positive outcomes and change the narrative of the role of the pharmacist,” said Jasey Cárdenas, AACP associate director of strategic engagement. “My hope is that after the public health crisis, pharmacists get more recognition and are able to be utilized to their fullest extent.”

Pharmacy organizations have also started to talk about what the profession might look life after the pandemic because of the collaboration and progress made during these many months. Testing and vaccinations may bring awareness about the role of pharmacists, but some feel testing and vaccines are too narrow an aim, that a greater opportunity lies within the coronavirus crisis. The opportunity that COVID-19 presents may be found in its disruption of healthcare delivery, allowing pharmacists to rethink the contributions they can make to improving the chronic health of the country.

‘It’s a New World in Healthcare’ COVID-19 has caused a rapid

deployment of healthcare professionals to meet an acute public health need.

While legislators and government officials have deliberated over how to mobilize the healthcare system to respond to this need, pharmacists have pondered how to prepare for it, participate in it and convince the rest of the healthcare system to see the important contribution pharmacists make, not just to this deployment but to all public health initiatives.

Screenings and vaccinations are critical to a COVID-19 response, and all pharmacy schools train student pharmacists to administer screenings and vaccines. But such services are “point-in-time events,” noted Dr. Todd Sorensen, professor and senior executive associate dean for strategic initiatives and faculty affairs at the University of Minnesota College of Pharmacy. A hypothetical patient goes to a pharmacist and receives the COVID-19 vaccine. The pharmacist reports that the patient received the vaccine, but the exchange does not require the collaboration needed to drive the practice transformation that Sorensen sought as AACP’s immediate past president: that 50 percent of primary care physicians will have a formal relationship with a pharmacist by 2025.

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“My hope is that pharmacy sees that the opportunity of COVID is not just screenings and vaccines. The opportunity of COVID is the disruption that’s going to occur in chronic care management because of the way we are going to do things differently after COVID. It’s a new world in healthcare.” ­—Dr. Todd Sorensen

While these point-in-time moments may not be enough to transform practice, Sorensen believes there is more opportunity to be found within the crisis to help with that transformation. Because of COVID-19, people are rethinking the structures and barriers that exist in healthcare (e.g., that a patient needs to be at a certain location at a certain time to receive care). Patients expect more flexibility in the system and health plans are starting to pay for telehealth services. Sorensen believes such changes will cause a disruption in healthcare, prompting health professionals to reevaluate how they deliver effective, convenient care. Therein lies an opportunity for pharmacy to create new ways to partner with other providers and emerge from the public health crisis with more influence.

“My hope is that pharmacy sees that the opportunity of COVID is not just screenings and vaccines.

The opportunity of COVID is the disruption that’s going to occur in chronic care management because of the way we are going to do things differently after COVID,” Sorensen

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said. “It’s a new world in healthcare.

Some of it, we may wish that it was going to go back to the way it was, but it’s not going to. So we all, collectively, need to be thinking about what does this new world present to us as an opportunity and how do we take advantage of it?”

An Opportune Remake of Practice and Curriculum Pharmacy schools must think creatively and conjure up auspicious ways for pharmacists to collaborate in this emerging telehealth space.

Pharmacy has often been thought of as a community access point, but if it’s easy to connect with a physician over telecommunications, then it might not matter if there’s a pharmacy down the street. Just as the coronavirus has disrupted medical practice, it could disrupt services that have traditionally drawn people into pharmacies.

Additionally, while new opportunities are emerging for pharmacists, this is true of other healthcare personnel as well. Certain health-related services that could be extended to pharmacists could also be extended to other personnel who can provide these services at a lower cost of delivery, thus

limiting the appeal for pharmacists to serve as a primary provider of these services.

UMN College of Pharmacy has proposed assembling a horizons committee to evaluate the landscape of change in healthcare and provide insights that will help maintain a contemporary curriculum to prepare students for the world that awaits when they graduate. The school is also facilitating a payer-provider partnership called “Slice of PIE (Partners in Excellence)” that is helping community pharmacists transform their practices to participate in a pay-for-performance program offered by a regional health plan, focused on improving chronic health outcomes. Pharmacies participating in this program are a priority for student learning experience placements and are helping pharmacists shift patient care and medication management services over to a telehealth space. Students and pharmacy practice residents in the school’s PGY1 residency program are also helping pharmacists adapt practices in a way that works during the pandemic, such as adjusting to home blood pressure monitoring, as

campus connection

“We are capitalizing on what we already teach our students, really advocating for pharmacy and doing the work that’s necessary to keep people healthy during this time.” ­—Dr. Anne Lin

patients are not regularly coming into pharmacies for blood pressure measurements.

Notre Dame of Maryland University School of Pharmacy students have been running numerous flu clinics on campus and visiting senior living communities to vaccinate seniors, in partnership with a health system, as another anticipated wave of coronavirus has prompted a big push for the flu vaccine. Student pharmacists are also educating their community, clearing any misinformation surrounding COVID-19, by holding virtual sessions with various nonprofit organizations.

“Many schools across the country are leading efforts on their campuses and in their communities to protect people with the flu vaccine,” said Dr. Anne Lin, dean and professor at NDMU School of Pharmacy. “We are capitalizing on what we already teach our students, really advocating for pharmacy and doing the work that’s necessary to keep people healthy during this time.”

Sustaining Gains by Staying True to Pharmacy Hoping to sustain the expanded

practices that the pandemic has granted, Lin, current AACP president, has charged the strategic engagement committee with identifying advocacy strategies to leverage the temporary expansion of pharmacy practice capabilities for continuous expansion.

Pharmacists received federal authorization in April to administer COVID-19 tests; she would like to see a day when pharmacists have greater authority beyond offering vaccinations and testing and do not have their authority so delineated that their skills are confined to a list. “I am hoping we are going to be able to keep what has changed and make sure we do it in a way that doesn’t lock us into a listing, but rather gives us broad authority to do what our knowledge and skills enable us to do,” Lin said.

For all the promising potential of telehealth, Lin wants to remember the barriers, especially in rural areas where connectivity may be an issue and a pharmacist may be the only accessible healthcare professional.

In October 2020, HHS guidance extended the administration of FDAauthorized or FDA-licensed COVID-19 vaccinations by qualified pharmacy

technicians and state-authorized pharmacy interns acting under the supervision of a qualified pharmacist.

While this authorization will increase access to vaccinations to the public, it also serves as an example of what had been considered a “pharmacistonly” service being provided by others within the profession. Looking ahead, the profession must continue to discern the unique contributions pharmacists make—caring for patients with complex issues, managing their medications and chronic health conditions—and leverage their expertise in the evolving world of healthcare, which is more important than ever as value-based compensation systems grow. Pharmacy may be able to sustain its gains in such a world by staying true to what is inherently pharmacy, which Lin believes COVID-19 brought clearly into view: “If you recall, early on in the pandemic, a lot of physicians’ offices closed. Sure, there was telehealth, but people were not able to access their providers as easily. Pharmacies never closed. There was always a pharmacist there.” P Athena Ponushis is a freelance writer based in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.

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community impact

Preparing Pharmacists to Care for Patients Experiencing Domestic Abuse Dr. Marie Barnard, recipient of an Academy on Violence and Abuse Scholars Award, advocates for pharmacists to be trained to spot domestic violence and play a bigger role in intervention.

By Emily Jacobs

Intimate partner violence is a serious health issue that affects as many as 27.3 percent of women and 11.5 percent of men in their lifetimes, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Domestic violence and abuse can cause both physical and mental health effects, ranging from injuries to worsening chronic conditions to post-traumatic stress disorder. The Academy on Violence and Abuse (AVA), a nonprofit academic organization, aims to advance health education and research on violence and abuse.

The AVA Scholars Program is a mentorship program established to help junior researchers conduct highquality research focused on understanding and limiting the health effects of violence and abuse.

Dr. Marie Barnard, assistant professor of pharmacy administration and research assistant professor in the Research Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of Mississippi School of Pharmacy, received a 2020–21 AVA Scholars Award and became the first pharmacy educator to do so. Here she discusses her research on domestic violence and why this is an important but underserved concern for pharmacists.

How did you get involved with this work?

I earned a master’s degree in epidemiology at the University of Tennessee Health Sciences Center. My thesis project focused on pregnant victims of domestic violence in Shelby County, Tennessee, and their birth outcomes. I did not intend to work on domestic violence in my doctoral program, but when I started my Ph.D. in pharmacy administration, I realized that no one in pharmacy talks about intimate partner violence. So I began to dig a little bit and learned that pharmacists are the only healthcare provider group that doesn’t have some kind of mandatory training [on domestic violence].

This raised some important questions. For example, is training not required for pharmacists because patients never disclose abuse to them? Have any pharmacists received training related to domestic violence? My dissertation project surveyed practicing community pharmacists across the country. We learned that many pharmacists had had a patient disclose abuse, but none of the pharmacists reported that they had received any training about domestic violence.

Ultimately, what I hope to do is to develop an effective [domestic violence] educational intervention for both the pharmacy school environment and continuing education for those who are out of pharmacy school and in practice.

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What is the AVA Scholars Program?

AVA offers what they call the Scholars Program every other year. [Recipients] get support from a more senior researcher in the field. They provide mentoring to support you as you conduct a research project. My Scholar Award will support qualitative research to conduct interviews with pharmacists, as well as interviews with victims to examine how could the pharmacy environment best serve these patients.

community impact

“Ultimately, what I hope to do is to develop an effective [domestic violence] educational intervention for both the pharmacy school environment and continuing education for those who are out of pharmacy school and in practice.” ­—Dr. Marie Barnard

Why does domestic abuse need more attention in the pharmacy setting?

[Pharmacists are] the most accessible healthcare providers there is in many communities. You can walk up to the counter of a pharmacy without an appointment. Pharmacists need to know how to safely respond to a patient who discloses abuse and then how to make what we call a ‘warm referral’ to a community resource that can help the victim.

Domestic violence negatively impacts medication adherence, and it can show up in other ways in the pharmacy environment. For example, it’s especially interesting in relation to opioid prescriptions, because victims may appear to be doctor shopping.

They may come with opioid prescriptions from multiple hospitals and physicians and this may be because they’re moving around providers to try to hide the abuse.

What other support has your work received?

I received an AACP New Investigator Award a year ago. That funding supported the development of a continuing education module and the first implementation and evaluation of the module. I also have a mentor, Dr. Pat Chase, through the AACP Women’s Faculty SIG Cabinet mentoring program. Dr. Chase is fantastic and was really instrumental in me getting the AVA scholar work. She encouraged me to lay out a research agenda with discrete steps, which was a great piece of advice. Everyone thinks, ‘I’m going to get a grant.’ You have to do a lot of work to get ready to apply for a grant, and one piece of that is collecting pilot data. The AVA Scholars Program forced me to put together a proposal about how I could collect pilot data.

I had to have letters of recommendation for this award and [Dr. Chase] wrote one of those letters for me. These kinds of mentorship programs target junior faculty, so they rely on letters of recommendation from another person in the field to say, ‘Yes, this person has the potential to be successful.’ It was really great that I could reach out to her.

What happens next for you?

I will be attending the 2020 AVA Global Health Summit Program virtually Oct. 22–23. I’ll get to meet my mentor. We’ll work through what I propose to do, get feedback and then begin to execute the project. At the same time, I will begin to identify larger funding opportunities for work in this area. I will report on the progress and the project’s outcomes in 2021.

One of the challenges for me is that there really aren’t any senior faculty in the academic pharmacy community to serve as a mentor for my work because there are not many others working on this topic. I’m hoping to be matched with a senior faculty member who is experienced in this area and has conducted research and been funded at the federal level in this work. P Emily Jacobs is a freelance writer based in Toledo, Ohio.

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Telehealth Comes Calling As the healthcare landscape shifts during the pandemic, telehealth may experience a surge in pharmacy settings.

By Joseph A. Cantlupe While the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted people’s lives this year, it also exposed a need for a crucial emerging tool of academic pharmaceutical instruction: telehealth.

The University of the Pacific (UOP) Thomas J. Long School of Pharmacy began implementing telehealth years earlier as a key part of the interprofessional education (IPE) track to connect student pharmacists with students from other academic institutions miles away.

Through telehealth, student pharmacists are evaluating care and diving into the ins and outs of not only what it means to be a pharmacist, but also pushing themselves into multidisciplinary lessons, learning from and with nursing and medical students about clinical work and empathy and seeing patients as human beings. They are doing it not by sitting in the classroom with their peers but over videoconferencing, making true connections in remote learning spaces.

“With COVID and the shift to remote learning, we appreciate that we can still have the same experience with a person via videoconferencing technology. You can find ways of connecting without being in the same physical space,” said Dr. Deepti Vyas, associate professor at the University of the Pacific’s School of Pharmacy.

The school is home to an undergraduate Pre-Pharmacy Advantage Program, an accelerated

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three-year doctor of pharmacy program, a graduate pharmaceutical and chemical sciences program and several fellowship programs. The school is using telehealth through different levels of pharmaceutical training and various aspects of patient care, beginning with a telehealth IPE track, said Vyas. These telehealth programs, which are being used to prepare for future and professional collaboration, are growing.

Connecting With Providers and Patients For the UOP School of Pharmacy, it was simply a matter of practicality that made it become an earnest driver of telehealth, as the school tried to link different campuses spread out many miles apart. “We had to think of a modality linking medical and nursing students with our pharmacy students,” Vyas said. “That’s why the telehealth track was born here. We use a real-life practice model so students can have a better understanding of telehealth and what they can offer in the future to connect with patients in remote locations.”

The school has a range of telehealth programs including IPE collaborations, introductory pharmacy practice experiences and outreach events using telehealth principles, Vyas said.

The telehealth IPE track includes relationships between UOP and other academic institutions, including the University of Missouri-Kansas

City (UMKC) School of Nursing, the Arkansas College of Osteopathic Medicine (ARCOM) and the West Virginia School of Osteopathic Medicine (WVSOM). They use a wide swath of simulations, each with a different focus of instruction, preparing students to address myriad patient health issues, such as drug interactions, cardiac concerns or psychiatric illness. They work with nurse practitioner and medical students to learn about various therapeutic plans. The programs reach deep into different areas of healthcare to expose students to richer and more advanced clinical experiences, Vyas said.

The collaboration with UMKC includes pairing second-year student pharmacists with UMKC’s psychiatric mental health/family practice nurse practitioner students, focusing on the management of complex psychiatric disorders including schizophrenia, substance use disorders, bipolar disease, Alzheimer’s disease and other chronic conditions. “[The University of Missouri-Kansas City] was very interested in using telehealth principles to link their students with ours. This was our third go-around and it was very successful,” she said.

Being paired with the nurse practitioner students was a tremendous boost in the instruction process, she added. “The nurse practitioner students provided a much-needed

community impact

experience for our students. A major learning tool emerged, which was empathy development.” Not only did students focus on the clinical management of the patient, they also discussed the social barriers faced by the patient. This helped highlight the human aspect of healthcare.

According to an abstract on the UOP-UMKC relationship that Vyas co-authored, the telehealth program developed with different kinds of diagnoses and patient assessments, as well as aspects of care. Student team leaders were responsible for giving point-by-point instructions during the telehealth programs and scheduling videoconferencing. During one academic year, 140 teams were created with 28 psychiatric mental health nurse teams paired up with more than 200 student pharmacists. Students reported improved attitudes toward interprofessional collaboration.

In a similar telehealth program involving the WVSOM, second-year UOP student pharmacists were paired with medical students on their clinical clerkships. Students received a patient’s chart in a simulated electronic health record program and a video depicting a physical assessment to obtain patient information. Students then used the SBAR tool to collaborate on the care of an acutely ill patient.

The UOP telehealth program is detailed and complex, said Vyas, including simulated patients’ lab reports, medical histories, allergies and imaging, notes and records of previous doctor visits—the full scope of what would typically appear in a patient’s chart, she said. The team used YouTube video physical assessments to analyze each patient’s condition. As students worked toward resolving each patient case, the groups leaned on each other, the medical students relying on the student pharmacists and vice versa.

The Post-Pandemic Outlook for Telehealth As the University of the Pacific continues to expand its telehealth programs, it comes at a time when the potential for such programs seems limitless. Across the healthcare landscape, telehealth is being widely adopted. The marketing firm Frost & Sullivan reports a projected growth in telehealth of 64.3 percent by the end of 2020 and an estimated sevenfold increase by 2025.

Other studies confirm the growth potential. In July, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services released a report showing “dramatic utilization trends of healthcare services in primary care delivery in fee-forservice Medicare in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic.” HHS noted that an internal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) analysis found that before the public health emergency, only 14,000 beneficiaries

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community impact

“I think telehealth is here to stay and the demand is only going to grow. The COVID-19 pandemic didn’t start telehealth but it definitely served as a catalyst. I think we’re going to see patients demanding that those services stick around because they like the convenience.” ­—Dr. Allie Jo Shipman

received telehealth services, but during the pandemic from mid-March to early July, more than 10.1 million beneficiaries received telehealth services.

That growth is spilling into pharmacy practices of telehealth, known as telepharmacy. The Global Telepharmacy Market Research Forecast of 2020-2025 bluntly projects a “boom.” A report noted: “There is no doubting the exponential surge of telemedicine and telehealth markets; the market is poised to expand at a significant rate in the next few years.”

“Access for patients and access to patients are the biggest lures for initiating telehealth programs, especially amid a pandemic when patients may not be able to come to a separate physical location,” said Dr. Allie Jo Shipman, director of state policy for the National Alliance of State Pharmacy Associations. “I think telehealth is here to stay and the demand is only going to grow.

The COVID-19 pandemic didn’t start telehealth but it definitely served as a catalyst. I think we’re going to see patients demanding that those services stick around because they like the convenience.”

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Typically, telemedicine services are administered by physicians while telehealth can be provided by a wide range of healthcare professionals, such as pharmacists, nurses and others, according to the World Health Organization.

Telehealth allows for the delivery of pharmacy care via telecommunications to patients in locations where they may have not direct contact with pharmacists. As patients were forced to stay at home instead of having direct contact with physicians, pharmacists and other healthcare providers, telehealth allowed them to continue to access healthcare.

Telehealth has been extremely helpful for pharmacists, providing ongoing monitoring and management of patients with chronic conditions, medication therapy management, chronic disease management, transitions of care, remote dispensing and ambulatory care. While telehealth may be the wave of the future, that doesn’t mean it won’t be without hiccups, especially in terms of billing, regulatory procedures and even patient response, according to Dr. Mary Ann Kliethermes, director of medication quality and safety at the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, HHS also made it easier to provide telehealth In June, ASHP surveyed its members services through commonly used apps about their attitudes regarding telesuch as FaceTime, Facebook Messenger, health medicine management services.

Google Hangouts, Zoom or Skype.

Their responses were decidedly mixed, CMS has issued temporary measures Kliethermes said. About 38 percent to make it easier for people enrolled in of respondents said they preferred Medicare, Medicaid and the Children’s telehealth to healthcare visits, while Health Insurance Program to use another 25 percent wanted face-totelehealth. Pharmacy kept apace. “With face appointments. At least 15 percent speeds seldom seen by states board “didn’t care either way” and 20 percent of pharmacy, regulations governing didn’t have an opinion or neglected pharmacy operations have been to share one, said Kliethermes. “We rewritten in response to the pandemic are finding in the industry patients and waivers have proliferated and new who prefer telehealth but many who guidelines issued daily to open the door still want face-to-face visits. As we to telehealth,” Shipman added. move forward that’s going to be in the mix.” In her experience in ambulatory

community impact

practice, Kliethermes observed that some patients would come early for appointments, “coming for socialization because they were mainly alone.”

Telehealth also has been the focus of a lack of reimbursement for pharmacists.

About 60 percent of pharmacists surveyed said they didn’t bill for telehealth “because it was hard and confusing and there were so many barriers” to reimbursement, Kliethermes said. “It’s been that way for a long time because pharmacists aren’t considered healthcare providers.” Despite the obstacles, Kliethermes believes telehealth will be “what the population needs. I think it will be part of practices. Enough patients will like it.”

Aside from the technology aspect, personal relationships overall will be important for student pharmacists as they pursue telehealth studies, said Kliethermes. Generally, younger people “don’t have to learn the technology,” she said. “Students know the technology.

It’s just really about the connections.

How do you conduct the visit [over Zoom or phone]? This is among the things to think about. How does the patient know you are authentic, someone whom they’ve never met before?”

The idea, she continued, was to foster more research and have consensus building. As telehealth evolves, it must go deeper into conditions of care as well as help healthcare leaders understand relationships that can play pivotal roles in broadening its response to patients. In that way, telehealth While clinical instruction is important, becomes more than just another voice Vyas agrees that interprofessional or image. It’s that human connection, collaboration regarding social issues and that can begin with academic related to health is equally vital. That’s pharmacy instruction, Vyas indicated. why UOP’s School of Pharmacy entered “We’re looking at professional into a telehealth partnership with collaboration and improving peer the Arkansas College of Osteopathic perceptions of interprofessional Medicine. They worked to examine collaboration. There are so many social determinants of health, things we have yet to discover. The particularly in cases where studies biggest value is leaning on each other have shown that minorities receive in the future.” P less equitable treatment than whites.

Joseph A. Cantlupe is a freelance writer based Using telehealth, the students can in Washington, D.C. discuss “global issues that face our communities, examining the research in the literature to see the reason for disparities and identify strategies to pull together those social determinants of health,” Vyas said.

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EXpanding 16

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community impact

As AACP moves to further facilitate international relationships, pharmacy schools share the learning opportunities that help advance global pharmacy education.

Horizons

By Jane E. Rooney

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Even before a pandemic swept across the globe at lightning speed, it’s been clear for some time that everything from politics to the environment to healthcare is connected on an international level. Our interconnectedness—fortified by the ease of travel and the speed of doing business and sharing resources online—necessitates that organizations and institutions think globally. The worldwide race to produce a coronavirus vaccine and the need for healthcare professionals, including pharmacists, to communicate and collaborate is just one example of this.

To that end, AACP has been considering how to broaden its global pharmacy education offerings. International memberships currently make up a small portion of the membership base, but AACP intends to pursue an expanded effort to bring in and engage new global members. “We have been expanding our international footprint for a number of years with services and programs.

As our schools continue to expand their international collaborations, particularly with experiential education and exchanges, it’s become something we want to expand on as well to facilitate that dialogue and to make it easier for our schools to collaborate with international schools,” noted Terry Ryan, AACP’s director of enterprise systems and membership. “We feel now is the time to make more of a concerted effort and push. Hopefully we can facilitate increased collaboration between our members and international faculty as well.”

With AACP’s 2021 annual meeting slated to be held in Toronto, the timing is ideal to pursue greater global outreach, he added. Dr. Adam Persky, professor, UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy and AACP Board member, pointed out that AACP has always attracted people from around the globe to its meetings and the Board felt it made sense to formalize a path to membership. “This will give them access to the great resources AACP has as well as opportunities for networking,” Persky said. “Our goal is to promote pharmacy education, so who better to help do it globally than us?”

As the Board weighed how to move forward with a new global strategy, one key consideration was making sure current members continue to have access to all of the resources they value. “We didn’t want our current membership to feel like they were being deprived of anything and we wanted them to feel like they were gaining something in the process,” he continued. “We had to think about how many resources our global members want, what might be a good price point to encourage them to join but not be cost prohibitive. We want them to see the benefit of access to resources and the feeling of community.” In addition, “the manpower and resources of AACP can help members get access to more impactful resources and benefit from things like innovative practices, research access and collaborators, so the value for them is to collaborate with people who have been doing this for a longer period of time. We’ve been there and our experiences [at the doctorate level] might be helpful.”

A Stronger Partnership with FIP AACP’s Council of Deans International Collaborations Task Force will explore various opportunities and initiatives that AACP member institutions can develop and/or become involved with in collaboration with institutions/ organizations outside of the United States. Dr. Wanda Maldonado Dávila, dean, University of Puerto Rico School of Pharmacy, assembled the task force and helped outline its purpose and strategy. Charges for the task force include recommending frameworks to the Board

Free Webinar on Developing Global Partnerships The second webinar in AACP’s new International Webinar Series, Developing Global Partnerships for Pharmacy Education, will be held on January 7 from 10:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. EST. Registration is free and open to the general public. We encourage you to share this educational opportunity with your international network of colleagues! Learn more: https://bit.ly/AACPInternationalWebinar2

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“There is more access to manpower and research when you pursue global partnerships. We all learn from each other. Part of the reason people go into pharmacy is wanting to be sure everyone has access to healthcare, not just here but throughout the world.” ­—Dr. Adam Persky

to facilitate international relationships, and proposing mechanisms that can be used by colleges and schools of pharmacy to engage with institutions outside the United States in areas pertaining to education, service, practice and research. In addition, the task force will recommend programs and projects to support and strengthen the relationship between AACP and FIP (International Pharmaceutical Federation) to advance global pharmacy education.

Through Maldonado Dávila’s engagement with pharmacy education in the Americas, she understands that “there is a great deal to be learned from international academic pharmacy programs, and that concerted efforts should be made to propose mechanisms that can be utilized by our member institutions to facilitate the exchange of ideas and resources. Deliberate and collaborative international initiatives provide an additional path to enhance global pharmacy education,” she said.

due to the pandemic). “That’s an example of the relationship between AACP and FIP where we can do things together than benefit global pharmacy education but also elevate the stature of both organizations.”

FIP also will be piloting a partnership model between pharmacy schools in Africa that are part of the FIPUNESCO-UNITWIN program and AIM schools in FIP, many of which are in the United States. “That’s another way AACP member institutions can become involved with FIP to advance pharmacy education,” he said. “A school has certain areas of expertise but also has gaps in its program, so we will look at finding a good match from another institution to help them address their gaps.”

For Altiere, global pharmacy education is an integral part of building a competent workforce. “It’s extremely important as we try to advance the role of pharmacy in healthcare—you have to have an education system that supports building the workforce. You’ve got to set Dr. Ralph Altiere, dean and professor, University of up programs that will meet that need,” he emphasized.

Colorado Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceuti“There is a general movement to a more patient-centered cal Sciences, was selected to chair the task force in great care profession, so you need to have an education system measure because of his vast experience in global pharthat produces graduates who are prepared to provide macy education and his existing relationship with FIP as those services. Decades ago in the United States, many FIP Education chair. “When I was asked to head up this schools had programs that were rich in science but short task force, my desire was that it needs to be collaborative on clinical care. That’s changed, but there’s a lot of work not competitive. How do we strengthen that relationship to do to move programs along that spectrum. There’s between AACP and FIP for the purpose of advancing enthusiasm for doing that but there are barriers to overpharmacy education globally?” he said. Altiere described come when you want to change a program. That’s what an effort between AACP and FIP’s academic institutional FIP is trying to do, and AACP is trying to help. Advance membership (AIM) unit to develop a Global Academic science and practice globally to work toward the desired Leadership Fellows Program, which was set to begin as outcome, which is to improve the health of communities an intense yearlong program this year (now postponed and of countries.”

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“It’s a two-way street. We can and should learn from other countries. It will strengthen AACP’s impact on the international stage through its work with FIP.” ­—Dr. Ralph Altiere

Innovating in Trying Times UNC’s Persky pointed out that the coronavirus has illustrated the need for global cooperation on healthcare.

“Our interconnectedness became very clear because of the pandemic,” he said. “Health problems in one part of the world are going to be a problem in another part of the world. To educate practitioners and talk about global health…if the training was there we could have looked at the spread of COVID.” He added that the United States learned from Asia how to contain and treat COVID-19, and then U.S. universities learned from each other about how to safely open up again.

“There is more access to manpower and research when you pursue global partnerships,” he continued. “We all learn from each other. Part of the reason people go into pharmacy is wanting to be sure everyone has access to healthcare, not just here but throughout the world.”

Although the pandemic has obviously put international travel on hold, made in-person meetings impossible for now and delayed some programs, Altiere said he does see a silver lining. “In some ways it has strengthened some of these partnerships and forced innovation to take place on both sides. We learned how to run virtual webinars and conferences successfully, but everyone wants to get back together in person again. I have no doubt we will see both virtual and in-person meetings and conferences in the future.”

While expanding global outreach has many advantages, Altiere does offer one caveat. “I don’t want anyone to

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think what we’re saying is, ‘I’m from the United States and I’m here to help you.’ That is clearly the wrong approach,” he said. “It’s a two-way street. We can and should learn from other countries. Some of the innovations you see in other countries make you stop and say to yourself, why didn’t we think of that? It will strengthen AACP’s impact on the international stage through its work with FIP. It’s a good relationship and I look forward to strengthening it on both sides.”

Another benefit of approaching pharmacy education globally is helping to prepare graduates to work in the pharmaceutical industry. “In places like China and India where they have a large number and size of pharmaceutical industry organizations, they are geared toward training pharmacists to work in that industry,” he said.

“This is an area that is on my radar screen because we need to pay more attention to it as an integral part of pharmacy education globally. A number of countries in Africa would like to set up their own pharmaceutical manufacturing facilities so they are not dependent on other countries for their medicines. They have to deal with other infectious diseases that we may not see here.

They have specific needs that we don’t have. It’s adopting and adapting educational frameworks to meet the most important needs of that region of the world. It’s working together to try to figure out how to get all of that done.

Medicines are at the core of treating pretty much every disease state. It’s critical that we get it right. Pharmacists are the people who can help get it right.”

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A Wider Worldview For pharmacy schools that offer APPE opportunities abroad or other programs that involve international travel, the pandemic presents a particularly tough challenge.

The Ohio State University College of Pharmacy offers a short-term education abroad program for undergraduate and Pharm.D. students. It has been a yearly offering since 2016 but is on hold for 2021 due to the pandemic, explained Polly Carlson, manager of education abroad and special events.

Ordinarily, “we spend a week in-country during the university’s spring break, exposing students to the pharmacy and healthcare aspects and cultural experiences of that country,” she said. “Past destinations have included England, Switzerland and Italy. We visit a range of sites, including community pharmacies and hospital pharmacies. We engage with an institution that has a pharmacy program and other sites to complement that.

For example, we visited the World Health Organization in Switzerland. Last March we visited a GP practice in London that was a colocated pharmacy. Students are not necessarily participating in any hands-on practice—it is really that educational piece and touring and interacting with the pharmacist and staff there and learning about the function of pharmacy in that country.”

Students—usually anywhere from 30-50—apply for the 24 slots in the program each year. “Preceding the week abroad, they are enrolled in a seven-week course, and the purpose of that is to introduce them to the pharmacy

and healthcare sites they’ll be seeing in-country, preparing them for international travel and getting to know one another,” Carlson noted. “Students receive an elective credit after completing the course and travel experience.

While this isn’t a required component of our program, we see many students participate multiple years in a row to experience different destinations.”

She sees great value in giving student pharmacists international exposure. “The first layer of that is stepping outside their comfort zone. Many students have never traveled internationally before and had to navigate a new city or country,” she continued. “The next layer is exposure to the pharmacy sites and learning how things are done there. The students are able to provide those comparisons with experiences here in the states so it’s about simply seeing how some things are done differently. With our regulations and laws, students can dive into deeper questions about why we do things certain ways in the states and if there is an opportunity to approach it differently. It’s about that critical thinking and getting them to ask questions. It can shape how they approach their studies and their future careers.”

Giving future pharmacists these opportunities that sometimes push them outside of their comfort zone allows them “to widen their lens of seeing how pharmacy is practiced, which helps contribute to their education,” Carlson said. “As they become practitioners, they will have that knowledge that things don’t happen in a vacuum.” continued on the next page

The Ohio State College of Pharmacy student participants in the international abroad program on the rooftop of the WHO in Geneva, Switzerland, in March 2019.

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A Wider Worldview (continued) University of Buffalo student pharmacists participate in medical mission trips, broadening their perspective on public health.

At the University at Buffalo School of Pharmacy and funded health literacy program. Finally, Prescott noted, Pharmaceutical Sciences, which offers several global Buffalo offers a global health pharmacy microcredential. health initiatives, a typical year involves about 10 student “In order to get the microcredential badge, students have pharmacists going abroad for APPE rotations and 20 to be enrolled in the global health elective and they do students participating in mission trips. These students need to go somewhere internationally, so either an APPE take an international travel elective the semester before or a mission trip,” she explained. “Students complete their trips. “That class involves learning about the counthree modules on their own and have the flexibility to try they are traveling to, learning the culture and meeting do it at any time while they are in pharmacy school. The with the group they will be traveling with,” said Dr. Gina work doesn’t usually start until the second year. We Prescott, clinical associate professor and global health wanted them to be able to finish the coursework at outreach coordinator. “Those trips are done in coordina- any point in time. This was designed for students that tion with our School of Medicine or School of Managewanted all of those global opportunities, so it’s really ment. It’s built around getting them to prepare to go those who are going above and beyond.” overseas and learning about the different scenarios they All of these experiences “give them a different level of may come across. We talk about culture, vaccinations, empathy and understanding for the changing healthcare what you’re going to do when you get there, but then demographics,” Prescott added. “Right now there is such we break them up by where they are going to travel. We a big emphasis on social justice and ethnic differences. work with our partners to develop a project like a drug Students are more inclined to want to learn about these inventory response.” things. With that and with COVID it helps them underOther offerings include a global health elective for P2 stand we’re not this isolated country where we have and P3 students, which explores the international comthe best healthcare system because we really don’t. It ponents of public health and infectious disease treatmakes them more empathetic. It makes them understand ments. It involves small group discussion and students healthcare from a more holistic approach and a broader work on a case project throughout the semester that scale about public health and utilizing healthcare resourcfocuses on public health, social justice and healthcare es a little better. They are more apt to look at society as a infrastructure on a global scale. Students can also teach whole as opposed to just the individual level. Most of our local refugees about medication safety through a grantstudents that go on to do global care have been engaged

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A Wider Worldview (continued) in our whole program and leave having a desire to want to care for underserved populations.”

ners overseas to say what do you need, what can we help you with remotely. We are trying to think creatively.”

For the time being, some of Buffalo’s global offerings have been converted into virtual experiences. Students who were scheduled to take a mission trip to Ghana are working virtually on projects with a pharmacy school there. In addition, Prescott said, “we have research partnerships in some low-income countries and we are trying to engage students on the research front to keep things moving and to keep the partnerships going.” She acknowledged that the pandemic will have long-term implications for these programs but that some benefit could come from the modifications.

Prescott said that the key for pharmacy schools considering adding a global component to the curriculum is finding a good global partner from a university setting.

“You have similar goals and objectives. It allows you to work together on global problems,” she said. “There is an ongoing interest to engage students so there are mutual goals between the two. Start small. Just find one partner and cultivate that relationship with specific mutual goals.

We’ve been able to keep our programs going on that level because we have a reciprocating arrangement.”

“Moving forward it’s going to have to change global health. I don’t think you can replace an immersive experience but I don’t know if we will have the same numbers we had. Our students still want to go. We had great initial buy-in for virtual experiences. We will do more virtual settings moving forward. It allows students to travel without the financial burden, which prohibited some students from travel in the past. We may be able to expose more students [to global health initiatives]. We’ve been working more with the local population on global health issues. We’ve been relying even more heavily on our part-

OSU’s Carlson added that looking within to find potential contacts among faculty members is a good starting point. “We’re fortunate that our Office of International Affairs has these formalized programs in place. I would recommend that schools connect with their Office of International Affairs for additional resources and support because a lot of that can be built off of existing programs and resources,” she said. “Sometimes you have to just start to be able to build. Just build off of what is available and then make further adjustments from there to continue developing the program.” P Jane E. Rooney is managing editor of Academic Pharmacy Now.

Interested in Global Membership?

Terry Ryan, AACP’s director of enterprise systems and membership, said that the push to reach out to global members is underway. A needs assessment of international faculty indicated interest in information sharing, collaboration and discussion of curriculum development. “For U.S. members, there is an interest in increased collaboration, experiential education, sharing and faculty and student exchanges. There are a number of ways that both groups are eager to do more collaborating,” Ryan said. “We think this could be a win-win for everyone.”

AACP is pleased to offer international pharmacy educators a complimentary individual membership for 2021. To learn more and to complete an application, visit: https://www.aacp.org/article/international-individual-membership.

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Copyright © 2020 Pearson Education, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Pearson and PCAT are trademarks, in the US and/or other countries, of Pearson plc. CLINA23931 MJL 10/20

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The upward trend of the pharmacy industry Pharmacy retains a moderate future employment outlook despite challenging market conditions.

Pharmacist Wages & Employment Trends* Median wages (2019) $61.58 hourly, $128,090 annual Employment (2018) 314,300 employees Projected job openings (2018-2028) 15,300 Top industries (2018) Retail Trade, Health Care and Social Assistance

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Upcoming Award Deadlines Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Grant: Grants up to $4,000 for faculty proposals engaged in educational research addressing Priority #3 of AACP’s strategic plan: innovation in education and practice. Submissions are due January 13. Learn more: http://bit.ly/SOTLGrant Emerging Teaching Scholar Award: Recognizes faculty engaged in or supporting exemplary scholarly teaching and the scholarship of teaching and learning, of faculty for whom less than eight years have passed since their first publicly-available scholarly work as a faculty member in the field of teaching and learning. Submission are due February 10. Learn more: https://bit.ly/EmergingTeachingScholar Award for Excellence in Assessment: Acknowledges an assessment initiative or project that uses systematic collection, review and use of information to improve Pharm.D. programs.

Submissions are due February 11. Learn more: https://bit.ly/ExcellenceInAssessment

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Send a Team to the Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Institute The events of 2020 have underscored the importance of promoting equity, diversity and inclusion throughout healthcare education and practice. Over the course of three days, attendees at the virtual Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Institute, Jan. 20–22, co-hosted by AACP and the University of Mississippi School of Pharmacy, will take a holistic approach to promoting diversity and erasing bias, addressing it from an individual and institutional perspective.

Inclusiveness is a core value of AACP, and it aims to support members’ equity, diversity and inclusion (DEI) efforts and act on the commitment to action made clear in its statements on diversity, racism, inequality and injustice. The University of Mississippi is dedicated to providing a supportive and inclusive campus environment and encourages other schools to do the same.

Attendees will benefit from home team discussions to develop an EDI action plan, with multiple opportunities to share and learn from other teams. Attendees will complete additional pre-work prior to the EDI Institute and teams will complete a pre-institute assessment. Registration is only $149 per person. Visit the AACP website to learn more about the Institute, including FAQs and a full agenda: https://bit.ly/EDIinstitute

Access #VirtualPharmEd Content in 2021 Don’t Forget: All content from Virtual Pharmacy Education 2020 is available to attendees for up to a year following the meeting. Missed the meeting? Don’t worry: Gain access to the entire meeting— including more than 150 recorded sessions, 90 hours of CE and 400 posters—for only $199.

You can view all content until August 2021. Learn more or purchase access at https://www.aacp.org/pharmed2020.

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Register Today:

The virtual INterim Meeting—INclusion 2021—will feature speakers and programming that focus on the critical issues you and your peers are facing during these challenging times. Register today for this can’t-miss event, March 1–3, that will address important topics such as COVID-19 and its implications for pharmacy education, faculty diversity and what more can be done, and healthcare practice transformation.

Program highlights include: ɋɋ Vision 2030: The Future of Health Care and Implications for Pharmacy Education and Training ɋɋ Professional identity formation ɋɋ Non-traditional/alternate work arrangements ɋɋ Work-life harmony ɋɋ International cooperation on education and research ɋɋ Microsessions on diversity, equity, inclusion and antiracism; online/distance learning for didactic classes; and innovative approaches to experiential education ɋɋ 2021 Research Symposium addressing the preparation of clinical and translational scientists

We hope you’ll join us, and colleagues across the country, for INclusion 2021 where valuable insights and perspectives will help you prepare for a critical year ahead.

Register today: www.aacp.org/inclusion2021 Academic Pharmacy NOW  2020 Issue 5

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Pharmacists Help People Live Healthier, Better Lives.

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Final Weeks to Renew Your AACP Membership During an unpredictable year, staying connected to the Academy and up-to-date on the latest news, trends and best practices is more important than ever. Renew your membership today and resolve to take advantage of all the opportunities AACP has to offer in 2021: Engage with colleagues and collaborate virtually throughout the year with faculty, administrators and staff via AACP Connect. More than 3,500 discussion posts and 1,000 resource documents were posted in 2020!

Learn from your peers who share your needs and challenges by collaborating with AACP’s Special Interest Groups (SIGs) and Sections.

Stay up-to-date on industry trends with our targeted Webinar programming.

Explore valuable content from publications such as Academic Pharmacy Now magazine, the American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education, bi-weekly AACP E-lert newsletters and monthly Career Center notifications.

Save money when you unlock member registration rates to AACP’s flagship meetings, including INclusion 2021, Pharmacy Education 2021 and the Institutes.

Renew today: https://bit.ly/RenewAACPMembership