The American Pharmacists Association Academy of Student
Pharmacists (APhA-ASP), in collaboration with the Pharmacy Services
Support Center (PSSC) of the Health Resources and Services
Administration (HRSA), is pleased to offer an awards program to
APhA-ASP Chapters. Up to ten APhA-ASP Chapters will be awarded $2,000
for outstanding proposals for a project that promotes delivery of
comprehensive pharmacy services within a 340B-eligible entity.
HRSA’s mission is to improve and expand access to quality
health care for all Americans. It works to assure the availability of
quality health care to low income, uninsured, isolated, and special
needs populations and strives to meet their health care needs. PSSC was
established in the fall of 2002 under a contract between HRSA and APhA.
It was created to aide the HRSA Office of Pharmacy Affairs in promoting
comprehensive pharmacy services in HRSA grantee, 340B-eligible and other
health care delivery sites for the medically underserved.
The need for comprehensive pharmacy services has increased due to the
complexity and costs of medications. Pharmacy services, including the
provision of medications and pharmaceutical care, are important factors
in providing cost-effective health care. However, because of resource
issues or lack of knowledge about the value of pharmacy, many
340B-covered entities do not provide pharmaceutical services to their
patients or may only provide a limited number of medications or samples
to the most needy.
This APhA-ASP/PSSC awards program encourages student pharmacists
to develop a community outreach project in a 340B entity setting. A
340B-eligible entity is one that is covered under a program created by
the Veterans’ Health Care Act of 1992 that requires drug
manufacturers to provide certain drugs to covered entities at reduced
prices. Qualifying health care entities report that they have used the
savings from this program to reduce the price of medications for
patients, expand the number of drugs they provide, and increase the
number of patients they serve on a sliding fee basis.
As student pharmacists, APhA and PSSC encourage you to develop a
project that will be significant to a community health center or clinic
and its patients. The health center or clinic must either be a
participant in the HRSA 340-B drug pricing program or a 340-B eligible
entity. The ten winning APhA-ASP Chapters of the $2,000 awards are asked
to present a poster of their projects at the following year's APhA
Annual Meeting & Exposition.
All applications are due by January 5, 2010 and winners
will be announced at APhA2010 in Washington, DC.
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