2022 Script Your Future Medication Adherence Team Challenge Winners

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The eleventh annual Script Your Future contest saw participation by 24 schools in 11 states and directly counseled nearly 7,000 patients nationwide

Media contact: National Consumers League – Katie Brown, katie@nclnet.org, (202) 207-2832

May 13, 2022

Washington, DC —Today, the National Consumers League (NCL) and its partners announced the winners of the eleventh annual Script Your Future Medication Adherence Team Challenge, a competition designed to engage pharmacy students and faculty across the nation by encouraging teams to develop creative initiatives to raise public awareness about the importance of medication adherence, vaccine confidence, and safe drug disposal.

This year’s winners are Wilkes University, Temple University, Western University, Northeast Ohio Medical University (NEOMED), University of Pittsburgh, and Touro University California.

The 2022 Script Your Future Team Challenge is an awareness campaign coordinated by NCL with support from its partners and the Challenge sponsors—Eli Lilly, Deterra, the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy (AACP), the American Pharmacists Association (APhA), and the National Community Pharmacists Association (NCPA).

The Team Challenge was first established in 2011 to nurture adherence-minded values in future generations of professionals entering the workplace.

In 2022, our Team Challenge student health professionals spread messaging on the importance of medication adherence, vaccine confidence, and a new health topic: safe drug disposal. This year, over 1,000 future healthcare professionals and volunteers from across 11 states participated in the Team Challenge.

2021 Medication Adherence Team Challenge Winners

This year’s winners, selected from dozens of applications and 24 participating educational institutions, are listed below.

National Award Winner: Wilkes University Nesbitt School of Pharmacy – PA

Wilkes University is a fourth-time participant of the Script Your Future Team Challenge, and a first-time winner of the National Award! During the 2022 Team Challenge, students on the Wilkes team successfully collaborated with Highmark Health pharmacists to create a medication adherence questionnaire that was circulated to patients. They also creatively used social media, including TikTok and YouTube, to spread messages about the importance of medication adherence, vaccine confidence, and safe drug disposal. These messages got over 58,000 views. Students were also able to vaccinate patients for COVID-19 (boosters), Shingles, and Influenza. The Wilkes team was able to directly counsel 1,184 patients, and reached 49,313 people through their outreach efforts.

 

National Award Winner: Temple University School of Pharmacy – PA

Temple University is also a first-time winner of the Script Your Future National Award! This year, Temple students of pharmacy collaborated with health and community organizations in Philadelphia, including Temple University Hospital, and its affiliated clinics as well as the places where people live their lives such as local community pharmacies, parks, churches, charitable organizations, and schools. For example, Temple’s team worked with Dispose Rx to spread messages about the importance of safe drug disposal in North Philadelphia. This team also worked with the Children’s Mission to serve people who have no or unstable housing, and counseled them on their medications along with conducting blood pressure checks. Temple students directly counseled 234 patients, and reached over 400 patients through their activities.

 

Health Disparities/Underserved Focus Award Winner: Northeast Ohio Medical University School of Pharmacy – OH

The Northeast Ohio Medical University School of Pharmacy (NEOMED) team is this year’s winner of the Script Your Future Health Disparities Award! NEOMED’s team focused on reaching low-income and homeless individuals, the elderly, and refugees. NEOMED students worked with the Center for Families and Children, IKON Health Foundation, and Rose Centers for Aging Well to reach these underserved populations. Through their efforts, the NEOMED team vaccinated 456 patients, directly counseled 1,323 patients, reached 1,923 patients, and distributed and donated 3,254 resources.

 

Media Outreach Award Winner: Western University School of Health Sciences, College of Pharmacy – CA

This year’s winner of the Media Outreach Award is Western University College of Pharmacy! This team implemented creative uses of traditional and social media to spread messaging related to medication adherence, vaccine confidence, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, interprofessional collaboration, antimicrobial resistance, and safe drug storage & disposal. They created a brand-new podcast series that aimed to provide information on these topics, and made them available on multiple media platforms including Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, and their website. The podcast series can be found here. Across all of these platforms, Western University’s team was able to get 1,203 views.

 

Creative Interprofessional Team Event Award Winner: University of Pittsburgh School of Pharmacy – PA

University of Pittsburgh’s pharmacy students demonstrated great interprofessional collaborations with other health professional students at their university. Their team included students from the University of Pittsburgh’s School of Dental Medicine, School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences, School of Medicine, School of Nursing, and School of Social Work. Their multi-disciplinary intervention with different health professional students helped to bring multiple perspectives and skills sets together to bridge gaps in expertise when counseling patients. Their interprofessional team documented over 1,800 unique patient encounters at community pharmacy sites, including patients with disease states like hypertension, diabetes, and dyslipidemia to transplant and neurologic disorders.

 

Technology Innovation Focused Award: Touro University California, College of Pharmacy – CA

Touro University’s pharmacy students implemented creative uses of technology to increase messaging for medication adherence. They created a digital medication adherence wallet card, to help patients keep track of their medications in a more convenient way. Given that technology is so widely used today, this was a great effort by the students. They did mention an important issue, that there are people who do not have internet access, so these digital cards were given in complement with the physical wallet cards.

2022 School

Congratulations to the winners of the 2022 Script Your Future Medication Adherence Team Challenge!

 

A word from NCL and one of our generous Script Your Future sponsors

“The Script Your Future program has been a great way to engage future health professionals and spread messages about the importance of medication adherence, vaccine confidence, and now, safe drug disposal. As we are still combatting the COVID-19 pandemic, it is important to keep patients on top of their health care needs, and participants of this program have been a part of these efforts. This year, we had over 1,000 participants conduct community outreach activities, and NCL continues to be impressed by the impact these students have on their respective communities across the country.”

  • NCL Executive Director, Sally Greenberg

 

“Student pharmacists have been important contributors to the outreach to communities, especially throughout the pandemic. Medication adherence, vaccine access, and substance use prevention are critically important priorities and AACP appreciates NCL’s commitment to this recognition program.”

  • American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy (AACP) Executive Vice President and CEO, Lucinda L. Maine, PhD, RPh

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About the National Consumers League (NCL) 

The National Consumers League, founded in 1899, is America’s pioneer consumer organization. Our mission is to protect and promote social and economic justice for consumers and workers in the United States and abroad. For more information, visit www.nclnet.org.

 

Meet the winners of this year’s Script Your Future Medication Adherence Team Challenge

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The 2020 Medication Adherence Team Challenge is part of the national Script Your Future public awareness campaign coordinated by NCL with support from its partners and the Challenge sponsors—the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy (AACP), the National Association of Chain Drug Stores (NACDS) Foundation, the National Community Pharmacists Association (NCPA) and the American Pharmacists Association (APhA).

Medication non-adherence can lead to devastating health outcomes. Research shows that nearly one in five prescriptions go unfilled and half of all patients with chronic illnesses do not take their medication as prescribed. Improved medication adherence leads to better health outcomes and reduced total healthcare costs, and it was for these reasons that NCL launched the Script Your Future awareness campaign in 2011.

The Team Challenge was established to extend campaign messages into medical and other schools of health professions, and to nurture adherence-minded values in future generations of professionals entering the workplace. Each year, top performing teams are honored with a National Award for overall outstanding team achievement, or a Focused Award, which recognizes outstanding team achievement in the specific areas of health disparity/under-represented community outreach, media/communications outreach, or creative interprofessional team event. This year, we introduced a new focused award category, with the inclusion of a Technology Innovation Focused Award – a category that evaluates creative outreach with a focus on technology-based interventions.

In 2020, our Team Challenge student health professionals were met with unique challenges as they navigated the historic COVID-19 pandemic, which resulted in school closures, event cancelations, and a host of other obstacles. To adhere to social distancing guidelines, our dedicated teams pivoted their campaigns and made an impact in other ways. This year, the Team Challenge observed engagement from nearly 2,900 future healthcare professionals and volunteers, who all together hosted over 250 events in 14 states. Collectively, the teams directly counseled close to 12,000 patients and introduced Script Your Future messaging to over 430,000 consumers, nationwide.  Since the Team Challenge began in 2011, more than 21, 000 future healthcare professionals have directly counseled nearly 87,000 patients and nearly 26 million consumers.

The recognized schools, selected from dozens of applications and 82 participating educational institutions, are listed below.

National Award | University of the Sciences: Philadelphia College of Pharmacy, PA

University of the Sciences (USciences) interdisciplinary medication adherence outreach centered around individuals across all ages, from children to older adults. USciences’ team structure included students of pharmacy, occupational and physical therapies, medicine, and social work. Throughout the Team Challenge, USciences directly counseled 455 patients, reaching a total of 805 people. During their outreach, USciences introduced a new campaign theme – “A future of ______ begins with me”, to personalize medication adherence through each patient interaction. USciences’ campaign also placed a great emphasis on addressing racial disparities, reducing stigma surrounding mental health, and tangential issues like vaccine confidence and proper nutrition.

National Award Finalists

The following schools were named Finalists under the National Award category:
Pacific University School of Pharmacy, West Virginia University School of Pharmacy, Western University College of Pharmacy, Northeast Ohio Medical University (NEOMED), University of Charleston School of Pharmacy, Touro University College of Pharmacy, St. Louis College of Pharmacy.

Rookie Award | Howard University College of Pharmacy – Washington, DC

NCL is thrilled to announce that DC HBCU, Howard University College of Pharmacy, was the recipient of the 2020 Rookie Award. Howard University’s team included students of pharmacy, medicine, social work, and dentistry. Howard University’s target population included homeless or displaced minorities, children and parents, and adults with behavioral issues. The team tailored its disease focus to diabetes and heart disease, as they are chronic conditions that plague the region. Throughout the Challenge, Howard University directly counseled close to 400 patients and reached over 1,000 people with the help of 169 students and volunteers and distributed nearly 1,000 Script Your Future medication adherence resources.

Rookie Award Finalist: University of Arizona College of Pharmacy– AZ

The University of Arizona College of Pharmacy in Tucson, AZ also made a strong showing in the Team Challenge as a first-time competitor.

Focused Awards

Health Disparities Community Outreach Award | St. Louis College of Pharmacy – MO

Pharmacy students from St. Louis College of Pharmacy and nursing students from St. Louis University, joined forces to strategically and intentionally identify their target population – residents of a region of St. Louis known as the “Delmar Divide.” St. Louis College of Pharmacy chose this target population due to the stark disparities observed in the residents directly north and south of the Delmar Divide. For their outreach, St. Louis College of Pharmacy focused their interventions on communities north of the Delmar Divide, which predominantly consists of people of color of lower socioeconomic means. The team chose to focus on chronic conditions like diabetes and hypertension. Together, 60 students and volunteers directly counseled 350 patients and reached nearly 400 people. Through numerous events and newly fostered community partnerships, St. Louis College of Pharmacy disseminated nearly 400 Script Your Future medication adherence resources within the community.

Communication and Media Outreach Award | Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine School of Pharmacy (LECOM) – PA & FL

To illustrate the diversity of their team, LECOM pharmacy and medical students from campuses based in PA and FL produced a public service announcement (PSA) spoken in eight languages, to help amplify the value of medication adherence to numerous populations. The PSA garnered over 2,800 views. LECOM employed social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LECOM’s Pulse Newsletter, to help disseminate Script Your Future medication adherence messaging. LECOM students also wrote an original book to present heart health information to the children entitled “Mr. Pumper and the Heart Valves”, which was read to third grade elementary students. Throughout the Challenge, 293 students and volunteers directly counseled over 500 patients, reaching over 1,200 patients, and disseminated over 730 Script Your Future resources in their community.

Creative Inter-Professional Team Event Award | University of Pittsburgh School of Pharmacy – PA

The University of Pittsburgh School of Pharmacy partnered with the Schools of medicine, dentistry, social work, nursing, dietetics, and rehabilitation sciences, to organize a team of over 300 students and volunteers to execute their medication adherence outreach. University of Pittsburgh harnessed the interdisciplinary nature of their team to build a campaign serving older adults in their community, from a holistic treatment perspective. The team addressed issues like hypertension, social isolation, and food insecurity. Throughout the Challenge, University of Pittsburgh directly counseled over 130 patients and reached over 2,200 patients.

Technology Innovation Award| Western University College of Pharmacy – CA

Western University College of Pharmacy made an impressive debut for the inaugural inclusion of the Technology Innovation Award. To foster medication adherence, the team created a dedicated website that directed patients to resources relating to disease areas like COPD, pneumonia, heart failure, and diabetes. The website was geared towards patients recently discharged following a hospital stay and contained features like medication and post-discharge appointment reminders and medication adherence-related infographics in multiple languages.