AACP, NCPA sponsor contest to spawn best practices on adherence education
ALEXANDRIA, Va. — The American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy and the National Community Pharmacists Association are focusing on the issue of medication adherence with the announcement of a joint pharmacy educators challenge and half-day symposium that will highlight the best practices in teaching medication adherence.
The Medication Adherence Educators Challenge is the first effort of its kind and is aimed at better understanding the resources and teaching strategies currently being utilized to prepare student pharmacists to detect, monitor and improve medication adherence in pharmacy practice. It calls upon schools to submit their teaching tools in the area of medication adherence, including tools currently used in the curriculum and experiential learning, as well as ideas and concepts still in development.
“This challenge and symposium provide an unprecedented opportunity for faculty members to share their medication adherence education tools, as well as to strategically think about innovative teaching methods that could be utilized by academic pharmacy and other health professions in the future,” AACP EVP and CEO Lucinda Maine said.
The three challenge categories include didactic, laboratory and experiential educational teaching tools, with consideration given to entries designed to assist students in planning and applying an adherence intervention strategy. The submissions will be judged by representatives from AACP and NCPA. Three submissions will be chosen as the challenge winners. Each winning school will receive a $1,000 award, and each submitting author will receive a $500 honorarium.
The deadline for challenge entries is March 30. More information about the challenge, including the submission guidelines, may be found on the AACP website. A symposium agenda as well as pre-registration for the symposium will be available in May 2012, the association said.
The most innovative tools will be presented as part of a joint AACP-NCPA Medication Adherence Educators Symposium on July 18 in Kissimmee, Fla. The half-day symposium dedicated to adherence teaching will be held in conjunction with AACP’s 2012 Annual Meeting at the Gaylord Palms Resort, and will provide pharmacy faculty members the chance to share best practices, resources, and teaching strategies currently being used to teach medication adherence.
In addition to working with AACP, NCPA recently launched Simplify My Meds, a personalized coordinated refill program that facilitates improved adherence by aligning a patient’s prescriptions to be filled on the same day each month. The model decreases regimen complexity and reduces the risk of gaps in therapy.
NCPA and AACP also are committed partners of the National Consumers League’s Script Your Future campaign, a public education campaign to raise awareness among patients about the consequences of not taking medication as directed. AACP recently co-sponsored the Script Your Future Medication Adherence Challenge, which engaged student pharmacists in raising public awareness about medication adherence.
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