When the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy (AACP) hosted its annual meeting from July 19 through July 22, several UC Irvine School of Pharmacy & Pharmaceutical Sciences (SPPS) faculty presented their recent work.
The presentation titled “Supporting COVID-19 Vaccine Rollout Before Charter Class Arrives: The University of California, Irvine Experience” was led by first author Alex Chan, the Founding Chair of the Department of Clinical Pharmacy Practice.
In presenting the “methods” behind the vaccine rollout, Chan and the team focused on the school’s three initiatives:
- Pharmacy Force Collaboration: Pharmacists from the SPPS and UCI Medical Center (UCIMC) Pharmacy Department, most previously unknown to each other, worked closely to establish vaccine preparation and administration services at a campus-based vaccine clinic. Additional outreach was performed to recruit from a developing network of affiliated pharmacists willing to donate time to clinics.
- Interprofessional Education: Interprofessional education activities at the clinic were organized by pharmacy, nursing and medical faculty. Formal training and on-site training sessions were coordinated across disciplines.
- Community Outreach: Community outreach to educate the public on the fundamentals of COVID-19 vaccines included SPPS clinical and pharmaceutical sciences faculty.
Founding Associate Dean for Pharmacy Education Sarah McBane served as first author for another AACP presentation titled “Involving Students in IPE Planning: an unexpected initiative advances innovative interprofessional collaboration.”
Through Spring 2020, this collaborative opportunity brought together two faculty members from the UCI School of Pharmacy & Pharmaceutical Sciences and three students from UCI’s Program in Public Health.
As part of a public health senior practicum, the students identified publications related to public health and pharmacy inteprofessional education (IPE). Then, they made several recommendations to help establish IPE didactic and experiential activities between pharmacy and public health.
The recommendations enacted include: Simulations scheduled for the 2021-22 academic year and didactic courses offered as electives for pharmacy students.
To learn more about AACP and its annual meeting, visit https://www.aacp.org/.