2014 American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy Annual Report

Message from the President and the Executive Vice President & CEO

The “relentless pursuit of excellence in pharmacy education” was the theme for the 2013-14 year, and there have been so many opportunities to bring this to fruition over the past several months. We are pleased to share an overview of AACP’s activities in this annual report.

The release of the updated CAPE competencies at the record-breaking AACP Annual Meeting in Chicago got the year off to a blazing beginning. This is the fourth iteration of a blueprint for member schools to rely on as they design and redesign contemporary curricula for PharmD programs. As has been the case since the first CAPE competencies were released in 1994, the 2013 document informed the current accreditation standards revision as reflected in ACPE draft Standards 1 through 4. AACP has worked closely with ACPE in the past year to study key issues in the new standards, especially in the areas of experiential education and assessment.

AACP also engaged with the profession in its relentless pursuit of new and expanded roles for pharmacists. Through the Joint Commission of Pharmacy Practitioners, we helped the profession articulate an updated vision for pharmacy practice that truly puts the patient in the center of all we do. In addition, AACP collaborated with our practice colleagues in developing consensus on a patient-centered pharmacy practice model that will enable students and pharmacists to learn and deliver care in a systematic fashion that can be described and understood by our patients and other members of the health care team. AACP is a collaborator in the national pursuit of Medicare payment for pharmacists as well. Our Academic Affairs Committee studied educational innovation this year and has recommended that AACP take a lead role in the development of serious educational games for health professions learners. The AACP Board moved swiftly on this recommendation and launched Mimycx, a multiplayer game for interprofessional education that will be available in early 2015. The establishment of Professions Quest, a new game development company, was enabled through a strategic partnership with the Simulation and Gaming Institute at George Mason University.

This is also the year of celebration for two transformational professional development programs that have reached the milestone of ten years since their launch – the Academic Leadership Fellows Program enrolled its tenth cohort in August, and the AACP/Walmart Scholars Program welcomes its tenth group of aspiring pharmacy educators to our meeting in Grapevine, TX. AACP will recognize Walmart for its remarkable support of this program with the Distinguished Service Award in July. The Academic Research Fellows Program, a new development program for promising research leaders, was launched this year as well. Fifteen proven scientists engaged in a yearlong development activity focused on the insights needed to lead future initiatives in collaborative team science. We will celebrate the conclusion of this excellent new program in July.

AACP certainly has demonstrated our “relentless pursuit of excellence” in education, practice, research and service throughout this past year. We will bring this pursuit to all our future endeavors.

CRITICAL ISSUE #1 – Human Resources for Education, Research and Service

How does AACP assist members in attracting, motivating, developing and retaining the highest quality and most diverse faculty, students, administrators and professional staff?

Academic Leadership Fellows Program (ALFP)

As we prepare for our tenth anniversary celebration at the 2014 Annual Meeting, the program also is enrolling our eleventh cohort. This cohort will benefit from the year-long work of the ALFP advisory committee and AACP staff, improving and refining the leadership-development programming we provide these future leaders.

AACP Walmart Scholars Program

The AACP Walmart Scholars Program continues to focus on developing future faculty. The program brings students to the AACP Annual Meeting to strengthen their commitment to a career in academic pharmacy.

The number of scholarships continues at 85 in 2013. (Walmart supports the majority of the scholarships, and AACP provides support for 10 scholarships) This brings the total number of recipients during the program’s eight-year history to nearly 600.

Pharmacy College Application Service

The Pharmacy College Application Service (PharmCAS) completed its eleventh cycle this year with 116 participating institutions, up from 110 last year. In the 2013–14 admissions cycle, PharmCAS experienced a 1.4% decrease in the number of applicants and a 0.4% increase in the number of applications submitted, with an average of 4.65 applications per applicant, which is a 1.8% increase from the previous year. The accompanying tables display additional data. Promoting student diversity and access to pharmacy education, AACP continued the PharmCAS fee waiver program for financially disadvantaged applicants.

Interprofessional Institutes

The Interprofessional Education Collaborative (IPEC), of which AACP is a founding organization, hosted three faculty development institutes from fall 2013 to spring 2014. Interprofessional Education: Building a Framework for Collaboration was the focus of the October 2013 and May 2014 programs. Attendees discussed the fundamentals of interprofessional education, heard from practice experts, participated in team-based activities and identified faculty development opportunities. A total of 65 institution-based teams of three to five professionals, representing more than 30 disciplines, participated in the institutes, held in Herndon, Va. and Rosemont, Ill. Each team represented various facets of healthcare, including pharmacy, dentistry, medicine, nursing, osteopathic medicine and public health.

Quality improvement and patient safety were the themes of the January 2014 IPEC Institute held in Herndon, Va. To date, the IPEC Institutes have drawn more than 900 individuals from approximately 200 teams.

AACP Faculty Recruitment Exhibit

The AACP exhibit program continues to provide key support for faculty recruitment initiatives. During the past year, AACP exhibited at two national and six regional meetings. The booth promoted not only the benefits of AACP membership, but also the rewards that come from a career in academic pharmacy.

AACP staff and volunteers engaged with attendees at meetings hosted by the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists and the American Pharmacists Association, both held in Orlando, Fla. AACP also set up table-top displays at six regional APhA Academy of Student Pharmacists meetings, recruiting association members and faculty to help staff the booth. Because the American College of Clinical Pharmacy discontinued the exhibit portion of its Annual Meeting, AACP hosted a Coffee and Cordials Reception for Students and Academics to promote careers in pharmacy education.

Staff members plan to evaluate the exhibit strategy on an annual basis to ensure we are showcasing our programs, products and services to the appropriate audiences.

CRITICAL ISSUE #2 – Academic Resources and Program Quality

How do we facilitate members having the necessary resources to advance their institutional missions and achieve the highest quality programs that exceed the standards of accreditation bodies?

Center for the Advancement of Pharmacy Education (CAPE)

The CAPE 2013 Educational Outcomes were released at the July 2013 AACP Annual Meeting. The new CAPE Educational Outcomes are comprised of 4 domains: Domain 1 – Foundational Knowledge, Domain 2 – Essentials for Practice and Care, Domain 3 – Approach to Practice and Care, and Domain 4 – Personal and Professional Development. The major change from the previous iteration of the Outcomes is that CAPE 2013 includes an affective domain.

Global Pharmacy Education

AACP’s global activities continued to expand in the past year. The Association participated in and presented at international pharmacy education meetings in the United Arab Emirates, India, Ireland, Singapore, Canada and Australia. At the 2013 AACP Annual Meeting, leaders from pharmacy education organizations around the world provided an update on educational models of pharmacy education and quality assurance as part of the Global Alliance for Pharmacy Education (GAPE) special session.

In May 2014, the US-Thai Consortium convened its bi-annual meeting in Baltimore, continuing this decades-long collaboration to advance pharmacy education, practice and science.

All Together Better Health, the leading global interprofessional practice and education conference, convened its first meeting in the United States, at the University of Pittsburgh, in early June 2014. AACP was a co-sponsor of the conference, which focused on cultivating a global vision for collaborative practice in healthcare and developing a new model of interprofessional care.

Representatives of countries in North and South American attended the 2014 Pan American Congress on Pharmaceutical Education, co-hosted by AACP in June 2014, at the University of Maryland. Delegates discussed issues related to quality assurance and curriculum design.

Women’s Health Curriculum

For more than a decade, AACP members and staff have been dedicated to ensuring that women’s health is a vital part of student pharmacist training. In fall 2013, a group of key individuals revised and released the Women’s Health Curriculum. Developed in collaboration with the FDA Office of Women’s Health, the curricular framework outlines core competencies and performance-based learning objectives for use in either dedicated courses on women’s health or in conjunction with other pharmacy courses.

The task force looked at women’s health across a lifespan, identifying the key issues in each segment of their lives, and determining an approach to each scenario. The revised curriculum is designed to be flexible in order to keep up with the ever-changing knowledge about women's health issues. Multiple online resources are included to enhance discussions on the competencies and objectives. AACP plans to continually update and add to this framework, and encourages its members to use the resources in creative ways.

Assessment & Accreditation Management System (AAMS)

AAMS continues to be well used by our member institutions for both internal program assessment as well as the submission of accreditation reports. We are working closely with ACPE to incorporate the new Standards into AAMS. During this time of change, we are also working with ACPE and our AAMS advisory committee to distribute an RFP to ensure that AACP is employing the best vendor to deliver the AAMS resources to our members.

Award for Excellence in Assessment

The Award for Excellence in Assessment recognizes outstanding Doctor of Pharmacy assessment programs for developing and applying evidence of outcomes as part of the ongoing evaluation and improvement of pharmacy professional education. The 2014 award recipients are:

• • California Northstate University College of Pharmacy

•   Leanne Coyne, Karen McClendon, Parto Khansari, Tiffanie Ho, David Pearson

•   Assessing and Documenting Student Learning.

• • The University of Georgia College of Pharmacy

•   Michael J. Fulford, Lindsey Welch

•   Evaluating Professionalism in the Culture and Curriculum of a Pharm.D. Program.

• • University of Maryland School of Pharmacy

•   Lisa Lebovitz, Richard Dalby

•   A Simple and Effective Programmatic Assessment Process for Continuous Quality Improvement.

Innovations in Teaching Competition

Each year, the Innovations in Teaching Competition acknowledges notable teaching and learning strategies and assessment methods. The 2014 awardees are:

• • Neal Benedict, University of Pittsburgh School of Pharmacy.

•   Curricular Integration of Virtual Patients.

• • Dave L. Dixon, Virginia Commonwealth University School of Pharmacy, Evan M. Sisson, Virginia Commonwealth University School of Pharmacy, Veronica P. Shuford, Virginia Commonwealth University School of Pharmacy, and Spencer E. Harpe, Midwestern University Chicago College of Pharmacy Use of video recorded clinic visits to improve assessment of student pharmacists’ clinical interviewing skills.

• • Brendan Stamper, Amber Buhler, John Harrelson, Ashim Malhotra, Sigrid Roberts, Fawzy Elbarbry, Deepa Rao, Catherine Marlow, Reza Karimi, and Leslie Devaud, Pacific University School of Pharmacy.

•   Development of online pharmacy prerequisite review tutorials for first year pharmacy students.

2013 Annual Meeting

A record-setting 2,309 attendees engaged in the 2013 AACP Annual Meeting, which took place in Chicago, Illinois last July. Pharmacy educators enjoyed a week packed with networking and learning from the innovative and interactive sessions. Sessions covered a wide range of topics, including interprofessional education, collaborative leadership, experiential education, and technology use in the classroom. Several sessions demonstrated a variety of assessment tools and approaches our faculty can use in their own classrooms. Speakers led participants through discussions of developments in pharmacy education and practice. AACP partnered with APhA TV who interviewed our attendees at the meeting and produced a phenomenal marketing video.

With the generous sponsorship support from Walgreens, AACP brought back the Pharmathon 5K which was a sold-out event. Fitness enthusiasts enjoyed an early-morning run along Lake Michigan. Exhibit hours allowed conference attendees to view the latest products and services that support their work. More than 40 companies and organizations participated in the showcase. 492 poster abstracts provided additional opportunities to learn and share ideas.

Keynoting the Annual Meeting opening general session was Daniel Kraft, M.D., a trained physician-scientist, inventor and innovator who spoke on healthcare trends, specifically, the technological advancements affecting pharmacy education. In keeping with AACP President J. Lyle Bootman’s theme of “game changers,” Kraft described how technological changes moving rapidly toward implementation will accelerate new models of learning and patient care.

The Science Plenary was moderated by AACP President-elect Peggy Piascik, PhD, and featured Julie A. Johnson, Pharm. D., BCPS, FCCP, FAHA, with the University of Florida, Larisa H. Cavallari, Pharm.D., BCPS, FCCP, with the University of Illinois at Chicago, and Samuel G. Johnson, Pharm.D., BCPS, with Kaiser Permanente Colorado; Dr. Johnson is also the Inaugural IOM Anniversary Fellow in Pharmacy. This plenary session focused on the scientific, educational and clinical perspectives for pharmacogenomics; horizons of the genomic discovery; and addressed the clinical applications of personalized medicine at practice sites, as well as, the curricular implications for Pharm.D. programs.

2014 AACP Institute

The 2014 AACP Institute focused on the new CAPE 2013 Educational Outcomes – specifically Domains 3 and 4 dealing with the Approach to Practice and Care and Personal and Professional Development, respectively. There were 43 teams present working over 2 and-a-half days on developing plans for incorporating the new outcomes, developing charges for committees and an action plan for implementation back at their home institutions. Based on the success of the Institute, AACP will hold an encore session during fall 2014.

2014 Interim Meeting

The 2014 Interim Meeting, The I in Leadership: Make Your Mark in Pharmacy Education, focused on discovering ideas and opportunities to initiate new partnerships; extend leadership skills in areas that influence daily administrative responsibilities; learn about inspiring innovations emerging with higher education; and advancing approaches in healthcare delivery that are impacting the development of future healthcare practitioners. In attendance were more than 250 members, including deans, department chairs, and aspiring leaders in the Academy.

The CEO Deans’ forum provided a platform for CEO Deans to network and exchange ideas on how to manage current issues. There were four themed sessions based on topics identified by CEO Deans through a survey: Management of Budget and Finance, Leadership and Management of Faculty, Student and Educational Programs, and Building External Partnerships.

The leadership keynote, delivered immediately prior to the Interact welcome reception, featured Rear Admiral Scott F. Giberson, R.Ph., Ph.C., NCPS-PP, M.P.H., Acting U.S. Deputy Surgeon General, Chief Professional Officer, Pharmacy, U.S. Public Health Service. Moderated by J. Lyle Bootman, Ph.D., Rear Admiral Giberson shared his vision on the future of pharmacy practice from the public sector perspective.

During the opening keynote address, Beverley H. Johnson, president and CEO of the Institute for Patient- and Family-Centered Care, described the landscape in which today’s health professionals operate. By doing so, she highlighted how pharmacy education can help direct this future in flux. “We have to have a healthcare system grounded in primary care.” The most effective future, she added, is created by moving away from the current dynamic between patient and provider. “Organizations need to make the patient central” to the healthcare team and it’s important that providers “not talk at, or above, or to a patient, but with them.” Using her own mother as an example, Johnson illustrated how family members can be allies for quality and safety, as they are often closely monitoring the health of their family. Preparing students for the team-based environment should include the patient and his or her family as members of the team.

For the first time presented on an AACP platform, community practice leaders gathered for a panel presentation to share their vision in designing partnerships with academic institutions to expand research opportunities, experiential learning, and national residency programs. Academic pharmacy leaders and community practice partners exchanged ideas, expectations and challenges relative to developing these new opportunities. Moderated by M. Lynn Crismon, Pharm.D., panelists represented were from Walgreen Co., OutcomesMTM; Safeway, Inc., and Thrifty White Pharmacy.

Institutional Research and Effectiveness

The AACP Office of Institutional Research and Effectiveness (OIRIE) continued the expansion of new features available within the AACP survey system during the past year. A new Reports module was released in the summer of 2013 and it provides schools the ability to run institutional reports with drill-down options by question, customized peer comparison reports, and national data reports 24/7 directly through the system.

In the fall of 2013, AACP revised the Postgraduate Education and Training Programs section of the Application Pool, Enrollments, and Degrees Conferred Surveys and expanded the Association’s collection of data on pharmacy residency programs. These new items are included in the Appendix of the Fall 2013 Profile of Pharmacy Students.

In an effort to enhance the visual display and awareness of AACP institutional research data, the OIRIE released the Association’s first infographicin the spring of 2014. An infographic is a visual image that displays or explains information, data or knowledge and often communicates patterns, trends, and stories about complex data quickly and clearly. A poster-sized version of the infographic was provided to each member school.

Webinar Programming

AACP’s expanded Webinar programming is a growing endeavor that serves two key purposes for the membership. First, Webinars give the Sections and Special Interest Groups a tool for constituent engagement. Each Section/SIG is allowed three programmatic Webinars and three operational Webinars (business meetings). During the past year, Sections and SIGs hosted more than 15 Webinars. Each Webinar is recorded and posted to the AACP Web site for public viewing.

The second purpose of the Webinar programming is member and committee collaboration on behalf of AACP. The Webinar platform has been used for multiple business functions such as AAMS training, CAPE Outcomes Committee collaboration, orientation for new delegates to the House of Delegates, Finance Committee updates, Board of Directors updates, and Administrative and Financial Officer’s training.

AACP continues to expand of the use of the webinar platform to meet the professional development programming needs of the membership.

Online Learning Center

In its fourth year, the Online Learning Center (OLC) has become the enduring archive of online multimedia for the Association. The OLC houses recorded sessions and materials from past AACP meetings. Moving forward, we will add the ability to receive Continuing Education Units (CEU) through the OLC.

New Initiative: Professions Quest

The leadership of AACP recognizes that health professions education must also change to meet the expectations of students and society. The development of games for health professions students and practitioners can fill a gap in inter-professional healthcare education. This gap is the difference between what happens in an isolated classroom and an environment that requires cooperation of team members to improve safety and quality of care. The game environment could serve multiple purposes in providing the learner with a new model, 24/7 availability, and social and team based practice opportunities.

Professions Quest^SM was founded on February 20^th, 2014 in Virginia as an LLC. Professions Quest’s^SM product and services will bring numerous benefits, not discovered through any other venue or educational vehicle, to our target clients. These include:

• ▪ Increased health professions/students interaction, collaboration, and knowledge

• ▪ Unique vehicle for inter-professional education

• ▪ Mastery of the core competencies for health professions students

• ▪ Significant reductions in travel, entertainment, and lodging costs

• ▪ Measurable and Quantifiable results

The Professions Quest’s VIIML^{PatentPending} Platform and first Mimycx^SM game product will provide an unprecedented virtual interactive learning platform for health professions education. Not only will this platform provide each user with a fun and engaging vehicle to master health profession pre-established core competencies, but it also has the potential to build new professional relationships and knowledge exchange to improve the health professions industry in the future.

The first Quest for Mimycx^SM is scheduled to be released in the first quarter of 2015.

CRITICAL ISSUE #3 – Professional Practice Development

How do we help fully integrate pharmacists into the rapidly changing health care environment and prepare our faculty and students to understand and fulfill those roles?

Interprofessional Education (IPE)

AACP’s commitment to interprofessional education and team based care continues on many fronts, including the collaboration with medicine, nursing, dentistry and public health in the Interprofessional Education Collaborative (IPEC). In addition to the institutes held in October, January and May, IPEC continued to amass resources to advance and assess IPE and make them broadly available through the MedEdPortal (www.mededportal.org).

IPE is also a predominant theme for the Institute of Medicine’s Global Forum on Innovation in Health Professions Education, in/of which AACP is a founding member. The Forum convened two workshops this year: the first on assessment in health professions education (http://www.iom.edu/Reports/2014/Assessing-Health-Professional-Education.aspx) and the second on community-based education emphasizing education practice partnerships.

AACP/FMI Foundation Health and Wellness Pharmacy Practice Ideation Award

Health and wellness is becoming a higher priority in today’s society. This is due to a variety of reasons including the “triple aim” of improving the experience of healthcare, improving the health of populations and reducing the costs of healthcare. AACP and the Food Marketing Institute (FMI)Foundation collaborated in 2013 to provide grant funding for small conceptualization practice model activities involving pharmacists and nutrition professionals in retail food markets. Three grants were awarded in July 2013 to individual pharmacy school faculty who collaborate with a retail or independent food market to explore a practice model activity involving both pharmacy and nutrition. All awardees will present their research findings at the 2014 AACP Annual Meeting at the Gaylord Texan Hotel & Convention Center in Grapevine, Texas (Dallas area).

2013 Distinguished Service Award

AACP honored the National Council on Patient Information and Education for its tremendous contributions to informed medication consumers and patient safety.

Lawrence C. Weaver Transformative Community Service Award

The University of Minnesota College of Pharmacy was honored for its significant institutional commitment to addressing unmet community needs through education, practice and research.

Student Community Engaged Service Award (sponsored by Teva Pharmaceuticals)

The following teams were recognized for outstanding student-led community engagement programs delivering consumer education about medication use.

• • University of Hawaii at Hilo Daniel K. Inouye College of Pharmacy

•   Faculty advisor: Katherine J. Anderson, Pharm.D.

•   Student team leader: Shanele Shimabuku

• • Midwestern University’s Chicago College of Pharmacy

•   Faculty advisor: Sheila K. Wang, Pharm.D.

•   Student team leader: Vinvia Leung

• • Butler University College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences

•   Faculty advisor: Kristal L. Williams, Pharm.D.

•   Student team leader: Meagan K. Doolin

• • University of Houston College of Pharmacy

•   Faculty advisor: David A. Wallace, Pharm.D.

•   Student team leader: Kim Anh T. Pham

Pharmacist Patient Care Process

AACP, in conjunction with ten other national pharmacy associations, has developed the pharmacists’ patient care process. The process was developed by examining a number of key source documents on pharmaceutical care and medication therapy management and serves as the foundation for the care pharmacists provide to patients regardless of practice setting. The process was adopted by the Joint Commission of Pharmacy Practitioners (JCPP) in May 2014 and is currently being reviewed by each of the leadership boards of the contributing organizations. The communication plan for the dissemination and education of the process to those within and outside of pharmacy will be completed by third quarter 2014.

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Figure 1.

Pharmacist Patient Care Process.

Pharmacy Workforce Center (PWC)

The Pharmacy Workforce Center (formerly the Pharmacy Manpower Project, Inc.) continues to support the monthly pulse analysis of the balance in pharmacist supply and demand as reported in the Aggregate Demand Index (ADI). The ADI has accumulated 15 years of employer-provided data and is a rich resource for examining national and regional trends in the demand for pharmacist practitioners.

In 2014, the PWC will be developing a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy (NABP) with respect to data integrity. This MOU will assist PWC in developing a 2013 aggregate analysis report utilizing items from the NABP e-profile database for the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) Minimum Data Set (MDS) for pharmacists. HRSA’s goal of the MDS is to have a consistent set of data from all licensed health professionals.

The PWC contracted with the Midwest Pharmacy Workforce Research Consortium (MPWRC) to develop and administer the 2014 National Pharmacists Workforce Survey (NPWS). This year’s NPWS will provide critical information on the characteristics of the pharmacy workforce and the results will be available in late 2014.

Master Preceptor Recognition Program

2014 is the inaugural year of this program to recognize preceptors who are not full-time employees of a school/college of pharmacy for their sustained commitment to excellence in experiential education and professional practice. This program, funded in part by the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy (NABP) Foundation, recognized preceptors from seven NABP/AACP districts (one district had no nominations). 2014 Master Preceptor Recognition Awardees were nominated by Northeastern University Bouve College of Health Sciences School of Pharmacy (District 1), South Carolina College of Pharmacy (District 3), University of Michigan College of Pharmacy (District 4), University of Nebraska Medical Center College of Pharmacy (District 5), The University of Texas at Austin College of Pharmacy (District 6), University Montana Skaggs School of Pharmacy (District 7) and University of Arizona College of Pharmacy (District 8). The American Society of Health-System Pharmacists (ASHP) will become a financial contributor the Master Preceptor Recognition Program for the 2015 program cycle.

Minority Faculty SIG

The AACP Board of Directors approved the formation of a Minority Faculty Special Interest Group in November 2013. This group will identify and work with AACP on issues of importance to minority faculty. Leadership: Hope Campbell (Belmont University) Chair and Patricia B. Noumedem (Howard University) Chair-elect.

There are now 21 special interest groups representing the broad areas of pharmacy specialty expertise.

Members are invited to join as many SIGs as they wish to enhance their membership value and professional development.

Section of Administrative Services

The AACP Board of Directors approved the formation of the Section of Administrative Services. This volunteer community will foster the development of excellence, innovation and leadership in all professional endeavors including administration, practice, scholarship and service within the organization, the larger academic community, and the healthcare professions.

There are now nine sections representing the broad areas of pharmacy faculty expertise. Members are invited to join up to two sections enhance their membership value and professional development.

IOM Pharmacy Fellowship

Dr. Samuel Johnson entered his second and final year of the inaugural Institute of Medicine Anniversary Pharmacy Fellowship, where he has served as staff fellow to the Board of Health Sciences Policy. In addition, he serves as staff for the consensus committee on Core Metrics for Better Health at Lower Cost which will release its report and recommendations later this year. Dr. Johnson has contributed significantly to work at IOM in the realm of genomic medicine, including contributing as co-author of five workshop summaries of the Roundtable on Translating Genomic-Based Research for Health. He continues the development of clinical pharmacogenomics services at Kaiser Permanente Colorado, as well as teaching at the University of Colorado Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences.

CRITICAL ISSUE #4 – Advocacy

How do we strategically position AACP to carry out its advocacy agenda to build recognition of our members’ contributions to the health of the public?

Keys to Successful Advocacy

Being a successful advocate is an act of self-promotion. Whether you are advocating for a change in public policy or for your personal benefit you can improve your chances of success with an IDEA. Identify, Demonstrate, Evidence and Act = IDEA

• • Identify- the issue for which you are interested in building support (or opposition).

• • Demonstrate- your commitment to that issue by sharing actions you employ or activities in which you engage in that demonstrate the importance of that issue to you.

• • Evidence–List the current evidence-base that supports your actions or activities or suggests that these actions or activities lead to a given outcome.

• • Act–Take action! Find out what potential supporters know about your issue. Share your IDEA!

Script Your Future

In 2013, the National Consumers League (NCL) and its partners announced the awardees of the second annual Script Your Future Medication Adherence Team Challenge for health profession students. Awardees were recognized at a NCL event in July 2013. St. Louis College of Pharmacy, the University of Charleston School of Pharmacy and the University of the Pacific Thomas J. Long School of Pharmacy and Health Sciences were each awarded a National Challenge Award. Touro University, California-College of Pharmacy was awarded the Health Disparities, Under-represented Community Outreach Award, The University of Mississippi School of Pharmacy was awarded the Chronic Condition Outreach Award and the St. Louis College of Pharmacy was awarded the Creative Inter-professional Team Event Award.

AACP, the American Association of Colleges of Nursing, the American Medical Association, the American Pharmacists Association, the National Association of Chain Drug Stores, the National Community Pharmacists Association and the National Consumers League (NCL) sponsored a month-long outreach project in February 2014 for the third annual Medication Adherence Team Challenge. Academic health profession student programs were again challenged to implement creative solutions in their communities to raise awareness about the importance of patients taking their medications as prescribed by using materials from the NCL “Script Your Future” campaign. The Team Challenge engaged interprofessional student teams from pharmacy, medicine, nursing and other health professions. Select institutions will be recognized nationally in September 2014 for their efforts to tackle the problem of poor adherence.

Advocacy Update

The Affordable Care Act continues to influence the direction of the United States healthcare system. Evidence shows that healthcare costs are stabilizing and quality is improving. Much of that improvement in the quality of care is the result of greater attention to the millions of individuals that have one or more chronic illnesses and the medications they are prescribed. There is documented improvement in the medication therapy management programs offered to Medicare beneficiaries through Medicare Part D plans maximizing MTM’s benefit. This improvement is the driving force behind AACP’s work with other national pharmacy organizations to ensure that pharmacist provided services are available to all Medicare beneficiaries.

The negative impact of poor medication management is finally making policymakers aware of the benefits of the inclusion of pharmacists on patient-care teams. A great example of that awareness is the guideline from the Community Preventive Services Taskforce that pharmacists are important team-members in managing hypertension. The activities of AACP members, including development of medication adverse event risk-scoring strategies, are regularly highlighted in Academic Pharmacy Now. AACP members continue to influence public policy as sought after participants in efforts such as the Million Hearts™ program’s development of effective performance measures related to new lipid management guidelines.

CRITICAL ISSUE #5 – Research and Scholarship

How do we impact academic pharmacy’s ability to strengthen research and other scholarship in practice, education and the pharmaceutical, administrative, translational and clinical sciences?

2013 AACP Awards

• • 2013 Robert K. Chalmers Distinguished Pharmacy Educator Award

•  Mary Lynn McPherson, Pharm.D., BCPS, CPE, Professor and Vice-Chair for Academic Affairs in the Department of Pharmacy Practice and Science at the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy, was honored for her excellence as a teacher, her outstanding achievements as a researcher and scholar, and her overall impact on pharmacy education and the profession.

• • 2013 Paul R. Dawson Biotechnology Award

•  Alexander S. Mankin, Ph.D., Director of the Center for Pharmaceutical Biotechnology at the University of Illinois at Chicago College of Pharmacy, was honored for his contributions to contemporary teaching and scholarship in biotechnology.

• • 2013 Volwiler Research Achievement Award

•  Gunda I. Georg, Ph.D., Professor and Head of the Department of Medicinal Chemistry at the University of Minnesota College of Pharmacy, was honored for her outstanding research and contributions to the field of synthetic medicinal chemistry.

Academic Research Fellows Program (ARFP)

The inaugural class of 16 scientists began their experience in the Academic Research Fellows Program in September for the first of 4 learning sessions in this yearlong program. The program is designed to expand the leadership capabilities of established faculty research scientists and administrators to cultivate collaborative team research and graduate education across and within institutions. Participants gained experience in research-focused leadership development; team building; and the development of innovative research strategies to secure funding from federal and other public and private sources. Participants also gained insights into the dynamics, management, institutional structures and policies that affect research teams; and had the opportunity to network with successful research leaders and advocacy groups. Fellows met leaders from US national funding agencies (e.g., NIH, AHRQ, PCORI, NSF) as well as private sector foundations and funding sources. Each fellow conceptualized a project to advance team science at their home institution with input from their fellows group and ARFP facilitators.

New Investigator Awards Program

The New Investigator Awards Program - formerly named New Investigators Program for Pharmacy Faculty and supported in collaboration with the American Foundation for Pharmaceutical Education since 1986 - has been fully funded by AACP since 2010. This program provides start-up grants for new pharmacy faculty-initiated research projects. During the 2013-14 academic year, 113 applications were received for peer review by expert panels assembled from each of AACP’s governance sections. All applications were reviewed, and each award was based on scientific merit. At the conclusion of the review process, each applicant received the reviewers’ comments.

Seventeen awards were conferred, each up to $10,000 plus a $1,000 travel allowance for the new investigators to attend the 2015 AACP Annual Meeting and present their research findings.

Faculty Research Grant Data Report

Since 1998, AACP has annually collected, analyzed and reported information on faculty principal investigator (PI) research grants awarded by the National Institutes of Health. Now the AACP report on faculty research grant data is available as an online directory for members to view, select parameters for data comparison, and generate a customized report. Members are also able to search and view details of individual federally funded grants through the Federal Grants Search site. For fiscal year 2013, the overall extramural research grant support received by colleges and schools of pharmacy is shown in the table below. In this table, in addition to the NIH, other federal, and non-federal research grants, collaborative research grants from these sources are included.

Graduate Degree Programs School Pages Launched

To better serve AACP member institutions broadly market their graduate degree programs and have an expanded pool for recruiting students, AACP has developed 4 new resources for graduate degree programs:

• • The 2014-2015 PharmCAS application has been modified to allow both PharmD and graduate degree programs to participate in the same centralized application service.

• • Individual graduate degree school pages will allow schools to maintain and update the information on their graduate degree programs in a central location at any time through the current PharmCAS School Directory.

• • The newly re-designed PharmCAS website that will include a search tool for graduate program areas of study using the information collected in the PharmCAS School Directory.

• • The information collected on graduate programs will be incorporated in the newly expanded graduate program sections of the 2015-16 Pharmacy School Admission Requirements (PSAR) publication that will provide information for applicants seeking admission to programs in fall 2015.

AJPE

Last year, 150 peer-reviewed manuscripts were published in 10 issues of volume 77 of the American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education, including theme issues on Charting Accreditation's Future and Student Leadership. Viewpoints, letters, addresses, reports, book reviews, and other material (Table I) also were published. The Journal received 391 manuscripts in 2013. Of these, 42 percent were accepted for publication. Approximately 450 individuals served as manuscript and book reviewers in 2013.

Two new Editorial Board members were appointed in 2013 for 3-year terms: Margarita DiVall (Northeastern University) and Tyler Rose (Roseman University of Health Sciences). Naser Alsharif (Creighton University), Alicia Bouldin (The University of Mississippi), Brent Fox (Auburn University), and Peter Hurd (St. Louis College of Pharmacy) were reappointed to the Board for a three-year term.

Each year the best paper published in the Journal is recognized with the Rufus A. Lyman Award. The winner is selected based on utility and significance to pharmacy education, originality, research methodology and writing style. The Lyman Award Committee, which is appointed by the AACP President and chaired by the Journal Editor, selects the top paper. Twenty-nine papers from volume 76 were nominated for the Lyman Award and the award winning article was “An Introductory Interprofessional Exercise for Healthcare Students” by Celia P. MacDonnell, Saumitra V. Rege and Kara Misto of The University of Rhode Island, and Richard Dollase and Paul George, of Brown University.

For only the seventh time in the 77 year history of the Journal, the Association embarked upon the search for a new editor this past year. After 12 years, Joe DiPiro “passed the baton” to his colleague, Associate Editor Gayle Brazeau who assumed her new responsibilities in May. The accomplishments that are attributable to Editor DiPiro during his tenure are many, including the evolution to online, open-access publication, the expansion to 10 issues including themed issues and supplements, and the addition of a team of associate editors to round out the expertise guiding editorial policy and practice. The fact that one of these associate editors brings an international perspective reflects on the global applicability and reach of AJPE. Dr. DiPiro will be missed but AACP has every confidence that the progress of the last period will continue under the excellent leadership of Editor Brazeau.

CRITICAL ISSUE #6 – AACP Financial Resources and Infrastructure

How do we ensure that the organization has the financial resources short-term (one to three years) and long-term and the necessary infrastructure to support the mission and vision?

Staffing

“Dynamic” is the best descriptor of AACP staff resources in the current year. After a period of great stability several staff identified opportunities for career advancement, both within the AACP staff and in other organizations. Katie Owings and Jamie Taylor were promoted within AACP to new responsibilities as Manager of Student Services and Research Analyst, respectively. Also promoted to new levels of leadership were Sibu Ramamurthy as Senior Director of Finance, Allan Lee as Senior Director of Technology and Business Solutions, and Lynette Bradley-Baker as Vice President, Public Affairs and Engagement. Will Lang transitioned to the role of Senior Policy Advisor. Stephanie Fouch will continue in her role as Senior Advisor for Outreach and Communications. Members of the Communications Team have been promoted: Maureen Thielemans to Associate Communications Director, Trica Ekenstam-Gordon to Associate Design Director, and Kyle Bagin to Communications Coordinator. In June, AACP transitioned management of human resources to a contractual agreement with Raffa, a full-service finance and human resource partner organization dedicated to helping clients maximize the effectiveness of its workforce.

Treasurer’s Report

J. Chris Bradberry, PharmD

As you have read the highlights and key accomplishments in this Annual Report, I am pleased to share with you that AACP’s financial position and operating performance remains very strong and continues to improve. AACP enjoys positive cash flow and asset growth, most notably in the rebound of the investment portfolio. Cash and investment comprise 81% of total assets, and investments are managed under a balanced investment approach yielding a return of more than 8% since inception in 2009 through June 2013. Careful financial and budget management has resulted in the Academy accumulating considerable resources for funding new opportunities and initiatives that support and further the mission. Your Academy is Poised for Growth in new and existing programs that will increase member engagement and deliver highly-valued services!

Under the current strategic plan, Critical Issue 6 is about ensuring that necessary resources and infrastructure are in place for supporting our mission and accomplishing strategic directions across the Academy. As Chair of both the AACP Finance and Investment Committees, I have worked with our Senior Director of Finance and with other leaders to manage resources effectively and provide for the long-term viability of the organization while also setting aside funds for future investment. A standard measure of an association’s financial stability is its net assets ratio (the percentage of net assets divided by operating expenses). AACP’s ratio is 37 percent (a percentage of 25 percent or better is considered at or above standard).

In the fiscal year about to end in June, AACP is projecting a year-over-year increase in revenue, even though the growth in participation among key programs like the PharmCAS and PCAT testing have leveled off or dipped slightly in recent years. To mitigate the financial risks from the reliance on this one source of revenue from Student Services, AACP continues to look for new opportunities to diversify its revenue streams by developing new, critically important member services and explore global initiatives while also confronting, along with its member schools, one of the most difficult economic periods in recent history.

I am pleased to report that AACP’s Board of Directors and staff have been good stewards of your resources and today operate in a highly efficient manner. AACP has shown it is nimble in its planning activities, responsive to member needs and that is well positioned to support our dynamic and growing profession. As your Treasurer, I am fortunate to work with such talented leaders and for a profession so focused on transforming healthcare by advancing pharmacy education! Thank you for your continuing support of our Association!