AACP Joins Nation’s Top Leaders, Experts and Scholars to Join Fast-Track Research Study to Address $528 Billion Medications and Vaccine Challenge

AACP Article

Arlington, Va. – The American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy has joined the RAPID Alliance Medications 360 Study to create a strategic roadmap and actionable next steps for optimizing use of medications, vaccines and related therapies for U.S. populations.

Launched by the University of Louisville Center for Health Organization Transformation (CHOT), a National Science Foundation-funded research center, the Frazier Polypharmacy Program at UofL, and the RAPID Alliance Research Consortium, the study builds on research conducted in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic that identified strategic opportunities to improve health and wellbeing for the U.S. population while reducing spending on likely-avoidable hospitalizations, emergency department and doctor visits by as much as $528 billion by optimizing medications and vaccine use.  

Pharmacists are amongst 11 stakeholder groups invited to participate in the study, which calls for balanced representation from across the U.S. medication use ecosystem. There are multiple paths for deans, faculty and students to participate in the study. Senior leaders may register to join the study as voting participants in study panels, while faculty and students can register to join the study as panel facilitators, co-investigators or research assistants. More information is available here.

Study topics will include health equity and empowerment, value-driven payment and practice models, interoperability, digital technologies, measurement and attribution standards, influenza and COVID-19 vaccine uptake, and national research priorities.

UofL’s Judah Thornewill, Ph.D., Demetra Antimisiaris, Pharm.D., Robert Esterhay, M.D., William Yasnoff, M.D., Ph.D., and Tom Walton, M.Div., are the study’s co- investigators.

"We are excited about using new collaboration-science based methods and tools to enable leaders, experts and scholars from across the U.S. to co-create new, actionable strategies to address this important population health challenge," Thornewill said.

The RAPID Alliance is a multi-stakeholder, multi-university research consortium administered by NSF-CHOT and the Frazier Polypharmacy Program at UofL. Its mission is to conduct transformational research to optimize medication therapies for US populations. Founding members include leaders from the Patient Advocate Foundation (PAF), American Pharmacists Association (APhA), American Society of Health-System Pharmacists (ASHP), Academy of Managed Care Pharmacy (AMCP), American Society of Consultant Pharmacists (ASCP), American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy (AACP), National Alliance of State Pharmacy Associations (NASPA), National Association of Chain Drug Stores (NACDS), National Community Pharmacies Association (NCPA), the Community Pharmacy Foundation, CPESN USA, Sanofi and Sanofi Pasteur, and leading researchers from multiple schools of pharmacy and health science centers. For more information visit www.rapidalliance.org.