School of Pharmacy Team Wins National Award for Public Awareness Efforts
Three students and two faculty members of the Pacific University School of Pharmacy were honored as winners of a national award given by the National Consumers League in partnership with four national pharmacy organizations.
Faculty co-advisors Sharon Wu and Maddie Fry, PharmD '14, and students Jeffrey Li PharmD '20, Van (Annie) Nguyen PharmD '20 and Monica Ohm PharmD '20 made up a team entry in the national competition, which was designed to promote adherence to prescribed medications. The Pacific team, along with a team from the University of Pittsburgh, were granted Script Your Future awards for overall outstanding team achievement in the areas of health disparity/under-represented community outreach, media/communications outreach, or creative interprofessional team event.
The Pacific School of Pharmacy was recognized in the competition last year as the winner of the Rookie Award.
For its winning entry, the Pacific team partnered with the School of Graduate Psychology, School of Audiology, School of Dental Hygiene Studies and College of Optometry, as well as several local initiatives to sponsor six individual events, as well as maintain a continuing partnership with a primary care clinic.
“Once again, we continue to be encouraged by the collaboration and creativity of the next generation of healthcare professionals and are honored to provide a platform in the Team Challenge that promotes an interprofessional approach to quality, adherence-minded care,” said Sally Greenberg, executive director of the National Consumers League. “The robust outreach the student teams conducted to promote medication adherence in their communities was not only impressive, but also highlighted the integral role the entire health professional team plays in achieving positive health outcomes.”
According to the National Consumers League, nearly one in five prescriptions go unfilled and half of all patients with chronic illnesses do not take their medication as prescribed. Poor medication adherence is attributed to more than one-third of medicine-related hospitalizations and at least 125,000 U.S. deaths each year.