Category: Asheville
Grandy Receives NCAP Excellence in Innovation Award
October 15, 2018Rebecca Grandy, Pharm.D., is the recipient of the 2018 Excellence in Innovation Award from the North Carolina Association of Pharmacists for her work providing hepatitis C care in rural communities. Grandy is an assistant professor of clinical education at the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy’s Asheville satellite campus and practices at the Mountain Area Health Education Center’s Family Health Center. The award recognizes Grandy’s efforts to increase access to hepatitis C treatment in primary care centers. The incidence of hepatitis C virus is on the rise due to the country’s opioid epidemic and rising rates of injection drug use, Grandy … Read more
Kathleen Thomas Joins DPOP as Tenure-Track Associate Professor
October 2, 2018Kathleen Thomas, Ph.D., M.P.H., has been hired as an associate professor at the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy. She joins the Division of Pharmaceutical Outcomes and Policy and will work from the School’s Asheville satellite campus. Thomas comes to the School from UNC’s Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research, where she serves as the associate director of the NRSA training program in health services research for pre- and post-doctoral fellows. Thomas earned her Ph.D. in health economics from the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health and her M.P.H. in health policy from Yale University. She completed her … Read more
Casey Tak Joins DPOP as Assistant Professor
August 24, 2018Casey Tak, M.P.H., Ph.D., has been hired as an assistant professor at the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy. He will join the Division of Pharmaceutical Outcomes and Policy and work from the School’s Asheville satellite campus. Tak earned his Ph.D. in pharmacotherapy outcomes research and health policy at the University of Utah. He received his Masters of Public Health from Westminster College in Salt Lake City, Utah, in 2014. Prior to joining the School, Tak served as a graduate assistant and a clinical research coordinator at the University of Utah. As a graduate student, he was honored at the AMCP … Read more
Only One State Requires Suicide Prevention Training for Pharmacists, Study Finds
August 15, 2018Despite a wealth of suicide prevention training available to health care professionals, only the state of Washington requires pharmacists to complete suicide prevention training, according to a study from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Sixteen suicide prevention training resources, and five developed specifically for pharmacists, were identified in the study, which was led by Delesha Carpenter, Ph.D., M.S.P.H., at the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy. The study was published in the Journal of the American Pharmacists Association. Suicide rates have increased 24 percent from 1999 to 2014, making suicide the 10th leading cause of death in the … Read more
Asheville Professors Present at NRHA Annual Conference
May 31, 2018Faculty at the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy’s Asheville satellite campus presented at the National Rural Health Association annual conference in New Orleans. Mollie Ashe Scott, Pharm.D.; Rebecca Grandy, Pharm.D.; and Irene Park, Pharm.D., presented together at the conference, held from May 8 to 11. “Our talk was very well received,” Scott said. “There was not a strong pharmacy presence at that meeting, and so one of our goals was to represent the profession while also sharing our own work at UNC.” Their presentation, entitled “Team-Based Population Health Management in Rural Communities,” highlighted the professors’ work on osteoporosis, hepatitis C … Read more
Fourth Annual Asheville Summit Addresses Population Health
April 24, 2018On Saturday, March 10, approximately 150 students, residents and pharmacists from across the Southeast attended the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy’s Fourth Annual Asheville Summit at the Mountain Area Health Education Center in Asheville, North Carolina. The Asheville Summit is a one-day conference planned by students at the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy with the majority of the planning done at the School’s Asheville campus. This year’s topic was population health. In the past, the summit has covered provider status, innovation within pharmacy practice, and the importance of interprofessional care. Pharmacy students from Auburn University, High Point University, Mercer University, … Read more
Libbie Dellinger Wins Burrus Family Award for Service
August 17, 2017Elizabeth “Libbie” Dellinger, who graduated from the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy in May, is the 2017 recipient of the Samuel B. Burrus Family Award for Community Service. The award is presented to a student currently enrolled in the School who exhibits outstanding and unselfish civic, community or church volunteer service provided outside the scope of regular pharmacy practice. Dellinger studied at the School’s Asheville satellite campus and was nominated by Stephanie Kiser, Pharm.D., a clinical assistant professor in PACE and director of rural health and wellness. Kiser said Dellinger has always gone above and beyond in her service, approaching … Read more
Savage Promoted to Clinical Assistant Professor
July 17, 2017Amanda Savage, Pharm.D., formerly a clinical instructor in the Division of Practice Advancement and Clinical Education, has been promoted to clinical assistant professor. Savage works in the Asheville, North Carolina, satellite campus. Her scholarship efforts will focus on best practices in simulated patient and preceptor encounters utilizing objective structured clinical examinations. “Amanda is a valued member of PACE and our Asheville campus. She has made significant contributions to both our legacy and transformed curriculums,” said Denise Rhoney, Pharm.D., Ron and Nancy McFarlane Distinguished Professor and chair of PACE. Savage holds certificates in pharmacy-based immunization delivery, pharmacist and patient-centered diabetes care … Read more
Pharmacists Conducting Wellness Visits Spot Problems with Meds, Turn Profit for Practice
June 7, 2017Pharmacists conducting Medicare annual wellness visits in medical practices frequently uncover problems with patients’ medications while generating a profit for the practice, according to a study from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Researchers at the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy looked at what happens when pharmacists are tasked with conducting annual Medicare wellness visits in a medical practice. During the patients’ first visit, the pharmacists spotted at least one medication-related problem in more in than 90 percent of patients, the majority of which were able to be resolved by the pharmacist. During six- and twelve-month follow-up visits, … Read more
Pharmacists Missing Chance to Counsel Children, UNC Study Finds
May 12, 2016Children receiving a prescription medication should be counseled directly by a health care professional, recommends the Institute of Medicine and United States Pharmacopeia. But that’s not happening, according to a new study led by the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy. Pharmacy researchers observed 97 families pick up 116 prescriptions for children at three community pharmacies over a two-week period. Two-thirds of the time, the child was not present when a parent or caregiver picked up the prescription. Pharmacists counseled the child’s caregiver 20 percent of the time but never counseled the children separately. Children and caregivers were counseled together twice. … Read more