Purdue University Invests in the Future of Community Pharmacy

The faculty at Purdue University doesn’t just talk the talk to promote community pharmacy, they also walk the walk. They have committed to community pharmacy practice transformation by sponsoring Team Indiana through the Flip the Pharmacy initiative. Their investment provides direct coaching to twelve of the nineteen participating pharmacies across the state and advanced community pharmacy practice training for their students through a designated Flip the Pharmacy APPE rotation.

Purdue University College of Pharmacy leaders are passionate about providing their students with the best opportunities to prepare them for their careers. They also recognize that over half of their graduates will work in community practice. With their students’ success in mind, it was an easy decision for Purdue University to become a team sponsor for Team Indiana.

Flip the Pharmacy is a 5-year pharmacy transformation program aiming to re-work community-based pharmacy practice beyond filling prescriptions and toward an ongoing focus on a patient's health.

Margie Snyder, PharmD, MPH, Associate Professor of Pharmacy Practice and Network Director of Rx-SafeNet at Purdue University College of Pharmacy, says that Purdue University is focused on the future of community pharmacy through working with ACT (Academia-CPESN Transformation) Pharmacy Collaborative, Flip the Pharmacy and leading research via the Medication Safety Research Network of Indiana (Rx-SafeNet), a state-wide community pharmacy practice-based research network.

Snyder is one of three faculty members who works with a postdoctoral research fellow on the “Team Purdue,” the University’s name for its Flip the Pharmacy coaching team directly supporting the 12 aforementioned pharmacies. She explained how their unique program focuses on training fourth year pharmacy students to take the lead as the Practice Transformation Coaches every month, mentored by the faculty coaches.

Using monthly change packages, Flip the Pharmacy coaches work with local pharmacy teams to implement the six key transformation domains with an emphasis on continuing patient care planning with documentation in various eCare plan platforms.

Snyder explained, “On Team Purdue, we have a rotating system among our faculty-preceptors that centers around our APPE students and the pharmacies that they coach in Flip the Pharmacy. Each month, new fourth-year students take over the coaching role with one of the four lead coaches. The transitions are seamless as we require incoming and outgoing students to meet prior to beginning the rotation for a warm handoff that includes an introduction to Flip the Pharmacy, the pharmacies that we serve, and any concerns that need to be addressed in the next month.”

To ensure that the coach is giving each pharmacy the answers and support they need, the students maintain a continuity document. This file addresses all the questions and concerns that the pharmacies bring up during their site visits. Snyder affirmed, “This advanced pharmacy practice experience really works because of our continuity document. It helps us to stay on top of issues just like a single coach would if they visited the same pharmacy month after month.”

Purdue University College of Pharmacy has set up a creative solution to assure practice transformation in Indiana. As a university, they have a focus on transformational leadership by training their students to carry out the vision for the future of community pharmacy. Snyder said, “My vision is that we would be seen as the ‘primary care pharmacists,’ meaning that patients would consistently think of their pharmacist as the medication expert who collaborates directly with their primary care provider.”

She continued, “Patients would have a full understanding of what we can do to help them, and payers would be willing to compensate us for the clinical interventions that we make on a regular basis.” This is aligned with the vision for Purdue University College of Pharmacy to transform the practice and science of pharmacy to lead advances in human health.

Purdue University is a public land-grant research university located in West Lafayette, Indiana. In 2020, they admitted 148 students into the Doctor of Pharmacy program.

The Flip the Pharmacy program hopes to directly support 1,000 pharmacies and impact thousands more. To date, over 800 pharmacies are receiving direct coaching and implementation support. Learn more at www.flipthepharmacy.com.