‘Look for every opportunity’
UMKC receives the 2017-18 APhA-ASP Generation Rx National Award at APhA2019.
The Generation Rx chairs at the University of Missouri–Kansas City (UMKC) set an aggressive goal in 2017 to expand their chapter’s programming by not only implementing new events, but also increasing the level of public engagement during existing educational sessions. Through their efforts, the chapter experienced a 59% growth in the number of individuals educated, a 22% increase in public/media relations, and conducted 9 new events from the previous year.
We spoke with Amelia Godfrey, UMKC’s current Vice President of Patient Care Projects, about their national award-winning campaign in 2017–18, and she attributed the growth to the chapter’s structure and expansion of community partnerships. “Our chapter is unique in that we are one chapter in three locations. This means we get to interact in three different communities,” Amelia said.
Amelia also highlighted how local community partnerships can lead to greater innovation and the expansion of the role of the pharmacist on substance abuse disorder coalitions. “We added a unique aspect to our Generation Rx program in Springfield this year, through a partnership with a local prevention organization. Over the last few years, this partnership has afforded us opportunities to reach countless people through Generation Rx using funds from grants that the organization receives for substance abuse disorder education. This organization now employs a student pharmacist each year to coordinate use of state grant funds to educate more and more patients.”
UMKC also positively influenced their communities by providing valuable education on proper storage and disposal methods. Through the chapter’s 28 medication take-back events, they gathered more than 9,900 pounds of unused and unwanted prescriptions.
Amelia concluded our interview with some advice for APhA–ASP Chapters around the nation. “One piece of advice I have is to look for every opportunity to coordinate your efforts with organizations that are already out in the community. Whether it is local law enforcement for medication take-back days, domestic violence shelters, physicians at family medicine practices, minority health care coalitions, or campus health, university fraternities, and sororities, as student pharmacists, we have unique insight and the knowledge to help! There are many organizations out there that will gladly use our expertise to help reach their target demographics.”
UMKC by the numbers
• GenRx presentations conducted: 7
• Non-GenRx presentation conducted: 47
• Medication take-back events: 28
• Number of individuals that attended presentations/events: 5,059
• Number of individuals reached through education: 3,859
• Adults: 2,776
• Teens: 28
• Children: 124
• College students: 931
• Number of individuals reached through public/media relations initiatives: 581,087
• Number of student pharmacists involved in projects: 484
• Number of faculty and staff involved in all projects: 14
• Number of non-faculty involved in all projects: 25
SPM interview with 2017–18 Generation Rx National Winner: University of Missouri–Kansas City.