School to Expand PharmD Satellite Program at UNC Asheville

Academic Programs Divisions Doctor of Pharmacy Program - PharmD Practice Advancement and Clinical Education,

Grayson Mendenhall
April 9, 2010

The University of North Carolina Board of Governors on Friday, April 9, approved the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy’s plan to expand its pharmacy-education program to UNC Asheville in partnership with Mission Health System.

The School will create a satellite doctor of pharmacy program that will be based at UNC Asheville. The program at UNC Asheville is an expansion of the successful partnership the School has had with Elizabeth City State University since 2005. That program will graduate its second class in May.

The start-up costs for the program will be covered by a $2.5 million fund-raising initiative spearheaded by the Asheville Area Chamber of Commerce. The Buncombe County Board of Commissioners has pledged $600,000 toward that goal, and the City of Asheville has pledged $100,000. By the fourth year of the program, its cost is projected to be fully covered by tuition and by Mission Health System funding half the clinical faculty’s salaries. The partnership program should not require any state funding.

Asheville was considered the natural choice for locating a satellite program because of the close working partnership between UNC Asheville, Mission Health System, and UNC-Chapel Hill. UNC Asheville, a nationally ranked public liberal arts college, is noted for its strong science and mathematics programs.

“The UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy is widely regarded as one of the top pharmacy programs in the nation in both pharmacy education and pharmaceutical research,” Holden Thorp, chancellor of UNC-Chapel Hill. “This new program at UNC Asheville builds on our partnership with Elizabeth City State University to create a model for pharmacy education in the state that meets the highest standards while remaining economical and scalable. As the state’s need for pharmacists fluctuates, the program can easily be scaled up or down to match because investment in infrastructure and facilities is relatively small.”

Like its counterpart at ECSU, the satellite program at UNC Asheville will educate more pharmacists in an area of North Carolina that doesn’t have enough health-care providers in general. The UNC Eshleman School of Pharmacy recognized the need for more health-care practitioners in Western North Carolina and made expansion into the area part of its strategic plan five years ago. The satellite program could enroll up to forty doctor of pharmacy students a year. (The doctor of pharmacy, or PharmD is the professional degree required to practice as a pharmacist.)

The Asheville community is well known in pharmacy circles for the very successful Asheville Project, which began as a collaboration between the highly ranked UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy, Mission Health System, the City of Asheville and community pharmacists. It is a multidisciplinary program of care for people with chronic conditions such as diabetes, asthma, high blood pressure and high cholesterol. It has been widely recognized and copied all across the country.

The project provides intensive education to people with these conditions through their employer’s health plan. Patients are also teamed up with community pharmacists who help them understand how to use their medications correctly. The project has resulted in a system in which community pharmacists have developed thriving practices that have improved their patients’ health while saving money.

“This new initiative is an inspirational example of how partnerships with sister UNC institutions and local community leaders in health care, business and government enable us to invest substantially in our region’s future,” says Anne Ponder, chancellor of UNC Asheville. “The new program is in perfect alignment with UNC Asheville’s new N.C. Center for Health & Wellness and its work on the maintenance of healthy lifestyles and prevention of chronic diseases and will greatly enhance academic and research opportunities for UNC Asheville students and faculty.”