College of Pharmacy Wins Multiple Awards During Script Your Future Challenge

One of just two institutions to win this year’s National Challenge award

The College of Pharmacy at Northeast Ohio Medical University (NEOMED) won several national awards during the sixth annual Script Your Future Medication Adherence Team Challenge, according to an announcement made by the National Consumers League (NCL) and its partners. The competition is designed to engage health profession students and faculty across the nation by encouraging teams to develop creative ideas, events and initiatives to raise public awareness about the importance of medication adherence.

NEOMED was one of 66 health care educational institutions that participated in the Challenge of which there were four winners: College of Pharmacy at Northeast Ohio Medical University, the University of Charleston School of Pharmacy, the University of Pittsburgh School of Pharmacy, and the University of the Sciences Philadelphia College of Pharmacy.

Joined by the University of Charleston School of Pharmacy as a National Challenge Award winner, the College of Pharmacy at NEOMED also won two Focused Awards which include the Health Disparities/Under-represented Community Outreach Award and the Communication and Media Outreach Award. As the only Ohio pharmacy college or school to win an award, the College of Pharmacy at NEOMED topped all participants by winning three awards.

“Medication adherence is both a critical issue here in Northeast Ohio, and a wonderful opportunity for our students, faculty and local pharmacists to enhance involvement in patient care,” says Daniel L. Krinsky, M.S., R.Ph., an associate professor in the Department of Pharmacy Practice at NEOMED’s College of Pharmacy. “Our student participation in the 2017 Script Your Future campaign, led by our Script Your Future student champion Kaitlin Patterson, was absolutely phenomenal.”

The 2017 Medication Adherence Team Challenge is part of the national Script Your Future public awareness campaign coordinated by NCL and its more than 135 public and private stakeholder organizations, which include Challenge sponsors—the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy (AACP), the National Association of Chain Drug Stores (NACDS) Foundation, the National Community Pharmacists Association (NCPA) and the American Pharmacists Association (APhA).

“The Script Your Future Medication Adherence Team Challenge continues to be an innovative method for our future health care professionals to engage with their local communities,” said executive vice president and CEO at AACP Dr. Lucinda L. Maine. “The broad social media outreach and events held in these communities provide essential information and strategies for patients to improve their medication adherence and ultimately their health outcomes.”

Research shows that nearly three out of four Americans do not take their medications as directed. This may lead to devastating results, particularly for people with chronic conditions. National health advocacy leaders have recognized poor medication adherence, the outcome of which leads to more than one-third of medicine-related hospitalizations and at least 125,000 U.S. deaths each year, as a public health priority. Improved medication adherence leads to better health outcomes and reduced total health care costs, and it was for these reasons that NCL launched the Script Your Future awareness campaign in 2011.

The Challenge was established to extend campaign messages into pharmacy and other health profession schools, and to nurture adherence-minded values in future generations of professionals entering the workplace.

For this year’s Challenge, hundreds of future health care professionals held more than 320 events in 18 states and Puerto Rico, directly counseled more than 15,000 patients, and exposed more than 12 million consumers nationwide to Script Your Future. Since the Challenge began in 2011, more than 12,000 future health care professionals have directly counseled nearly 50,000 patients and reached more than 23 million consumers.

“Each year, we are so impressed with and inspired by the collaborative and creative outreach the student teams carry out to improve awareness of medication adherence in their communities,” said NCL Executive Director Sally Greenberg. “Though the current health care landscape is anything but certain, we know that the role of health care professionals in promoting medication adherence and improving health outcomes will always be integral. We look forward to continuing to work with the next generation of health professionals to promote an interprofessional approach to adherence-minded care delivery through the Team Challenge.”