UC School of Pharmacy Wins National Award
UCSOP Wins its Ninth Script Your Future Team Challenge Award
Charleston, WV – July 1, 2021 – For the ninth consecutive year, the University of Charleston School of Pharmacy has been named a National Award Winner in the Team Challenge of the Script Your Future contest.
The annual competition, held by the National Consumers League (NCL) and its partners, is designed to engage health profession students and faculty across the nation by encouraging teams to develop creative initiatives to raise public awareness about the importance of medication adherence in improving health outcomes and reducing total healthcare costs.
For the 2021 campaign, UCSOP collaborated with the University of Charleston Physician Assistant program, the University Of Charleston School Of Nursing, and the Kanawha-Charleston Health Department (KCHD). For many weeks during the initial dissemination of the COVID-19 vaccine, West Virginia was number one or number two in the nation for vaccine doses administered per capita. The University of Charleston (School of Pharmacy, Physician Assistant Program and School of Nursing) was consistently mentioned as an active participant in the Covid-19 vaccination clinics in Charleston and the surrounding communities. As a result of their robust outreach, UCSOP was able to directly counsel over 45,000 patients on medication adherence, and successfully vaccinated over 50,000 patients in the community.
“I am very proud of the School of Pharmacy’s impactful involvement in 35 COVID-19 immunization clinics with our colleagues from the Physician Assistant and Nursing programs,” stated Jamie Bero, UC School of Pharmacy Director of Student Affairs. “I know that the community was happy to have someone to talk to while they waited (after their vaccinations) and to receive the medication wallet cards. I would like to thank my Script Your Future Co- Advisor Ms. Jane Condee for her assistance as well as Dr. Gannett Monk for coordinating all of the clinic participants. It was a difficult year to find community outreach events because of the pandemic, and these clinics not only provided this opportunity, but they were an excellent chance for the students to practice their immunization skills.”
The 2021 Medication Adherence Team Challenge is part of the national Script Your Future public awareness campaign coordinated by NCL with support from its partners and the Challenge sponsors—the American Pharmacists Association (APhA), National Association of Chain Drug Stores (NACDS) Foundation, and the National Community Pharmacists Association (NCPA).
A release from the NCL states, “In 2021, our Team Challenge student health professionals were an integral part of their respective communities’ COVID-19 response. This year, over 5,000 future healthcare professionals and volunteers from across 13 states participated in the Team Challenge. Collectively, the teams directly counseled close to 150,000 patients and vaccinated over 134,000 consumers, nationwide. This year’s teams resulted in greater consumer outreach, than in the past 10 years of the Team Challenge combined! Since the Team Challenge began in 2011, more than 26,000 future healthcare professionals have directly counseled nearly 237,000 patients and reached nearly 26 million consumers.”
“Over the past decade, our Script Your Future teams have made their communities healthier, one patient interaction at a time, by fostering lasting medication and vaccine adherence values. This year was especially significant, as Script Your Future teams coordinated their outreach in tandem with the national COVID-19 response”, said NCL Executive Director Sally Greenberg. “We are so impressed by the vast impact these talented young professionals have had in their communities, where collectively, our student teams have facilitated over 280,000 patient interactions via direct counseling and vaccine administrations! Year after year, we continue to be inspired by these future healthcare leaders as they demonstrate the value of medication and vaccine adherence through interprofessional collaboration, innovative public health interventions, and a multifaceted understanding of health disparities.”
About Script Your Future
Launched in 2011, Script Your Future is a campaign of the National Consumers League (NCL), a private, non-profit membership organization founded in 1899. NCL’s mission is to protect and promote social and economic justice for consumers and workers in the United States and abroad. As an advocacy organization, NCL is working to educate consumers and key health stakeholders on the importance of taking medication as directed. For more information about the Script Your Future campaign, visit ScriptYourFuture.org. For more information on NCL, please visit nclnet.org.