UA expanding College of Pharmacy into Phoenix
More people are relying on prescription medication to treat illnesses, but the pharmacists trained to hand out those sometimes lifesaving drugs come in short supply.
Add to that Arizona's booming population, and you've got the makings of a shortage that is spurring some pharmacies to offer signing bonuses and nearly six-figure salaries.
About 45 percent of the nation's population has been prescribed at least one drug compared with 35 percent in 1994 - making the United States the most medicated of all nations, several health experts say.
Pharmacy school is hard, but the problem is not a lack of applicants.
"One of the problems with the pharmacist shortage is that colleges cannot turn out pharmacists fast enough to meet the demand," said Don Featherstone, who hires pharmacists for Bashas' supermarkets in southern Arizona. "It's an ongoing search. There is rarely a time when you're not looking for somebody."
Qualified pharmacists can save lives, catching potentially fatal prescription errors and making sure patients know how to take their medication. Hundreds of people die each year because of prescription errors, researchers say. Thousands more die because of adverse drug reactions.
Given such problems - and hoping to help build the state's biomedical hub - University of Arizona officials plan to expand the College of Pharmacy into Phoenix as early as this fall.
"There is a critical shortage of pharmacists across the country," said Judy Bernas, UA's associate vice president for advancement. "We will start small, then possibly grow to the size of the Tucson programs."
The Phoenix program won't just aid in the pharmacists shortage. It could help revolutionize the practice.
UA officials plan to introduce a new field of study to Arizona - a rare clinical pharmacogenomics program to teach would-be pharmacists to tailor drugs to each patient's genetics.
This could reduce chances of patients having allergic reactions and side effects, "even to prevent a liver problem," said J. Lyle Bootman, UA's pharmacy dean.
"It's happening in clinical settings, but is very, very limited," Bootman said. "Much more research must be done."
Such a practice could especially benefit minority groups, older people and patients with diseases such as cancer and diabetes.
The method builds on the centuries-old practice of compounding custom-made medicine. These days, most pharmacists have little occasion to use such custom mixes, but the knowledge involved is critical, experts say.
"Medicine is about to go through some significant changes, and we need people out there so when you're handed a drug, it's not just everybody's. It's going to work for you," said David Burks, senior director of development for UA's pharmacy college.
Pharmacists would be among those at the helm of this change.
Adding to the history pharmacists already keep on their patients, they would maintain a database of genetic information for each person.
But the immediate problem is managing the workload and the time it takes to fill a prescription.
Because of the competition for more pharmacists, those who are qualified in Arizona can expect salaries approaching the six-figure range, with bonuses between $20,000 and $30,000, said Featherstone, a practicing pharmacist whose company is opening about 10 new Arizona pharmacies each year.
Just two years ago, bonuses averaged about $15,000, he said.
"The sign-on bonus is actually new to pharmacy. In the last seven or eight years, it's become very common to offer them," he said.
More than 5,300 licensed pharmacists live in Arizona, but about 15 percent don't practice, the Arizona State Board of Pharmacy reported.
The number of pharmacies has doubled. The board reported there were more than 1,500 registered chain, independent, hospital and other pharmacies last year, up from 765 in 1995.
Some pharmacists work multiple jobs in the field and others work more than 40 hours a week, which can result in errors. Meanwhile, patients must sometimes wait days before a prescription is filled.
The demand is so severe that pharmacist and UA College of Pharmacy graduate Amy Thai is already considering expanding her six-month-old practice to offer Internet and mail-order sales.
"By 2008, the baby boomers will reach retirement age and that's going to have a great impact on the pharmacy," said Thai, 28, owner of Arizona Discount Pharmacy in Mesa.
Nationwide statistics say the same.
Since 1995, the nation has seen a 54 percent increase in the number of prescriptions handed out - now more than 3.2 billion annually, the National Association of Chain Drug Stores reported.
About 18 percent of the population is prescribed three or more drugs, compared with 12 percent in 1994, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services noted in a 2005 report on the nation's health.
Increasingly common outpatient surgery, swift development of new drugs and the push to reduce deaths from adverse drug reactions are also driving the need for more pharmacists.
Yet too few training slots exist for the number of students interested in studying pharmacy, said John Murphy, associate dean of UA's College of Pharmacy.
UA's pharmacy college in Tucson is filled to capacity and graduates nearly 150 students each year.
That's why the Phoenix program - which should produce more and better-trained pharmacists - is so hopeful, David Burks said.
"If you have more doctors and more pharmacists," Burks said, "you'll have a health care system that can deliver more equitably and faster to more people, sooner."
Source
No comments:
Post a Comment