MCW’s Advancing a Healthier Wisconsin Endowment awards more than $250,000 to reduce medication errors
(Milwaukee) – The Medical College of Wisconsin’s (MCW) Advancing a Healthier (AHW) Wisconsin Endowment awarded $255,600 over two years to help reduce medication errors, improve medication adherence, and improve patient satisfaction through adoption of uniform, patient-centered medication labels within the Wisconsin pharmacy system.
Wisconsin Literacy, Inc., which seeks to improve lives by providing leadership, support and a statewide voice for adult and family literacy efforts, is the lead community partner on the award through its Wisconsin Health Literacy division. The organization will work with Kenneth Schellhase, MD, MA, MPH, professor, family and community medicine at MCW. The partners will also collaborate with a community-wide support network of several pharmacy systems throughout Wisconsin, including Hayat Pharmacy, Hometown Pharmacy and UW Health pharmacies.
Misunderstanding and incorrect medication use is linked to nonadherence, which has been associated with a 20 percent greater risk of hospital readmission. In Wisconsin, 68.8 million prescriptions were filled in 2014, and over 2 million adults ages 21 to 74, took at least one prescription monthly. Seniors, who use the most medications, have a significantly greater risk of misunderstanding labels leading to allergic reactions, falls and hospital admissions.
With their Patient-Centered Prescription Medication Labels program, partners will work to facilitate adoption of user-friendly prescription labels with 46 pharmacies in three pharmacy systems across Wisconsin and be a catalyst for broader statewide change. The new labels will be based on the United States Pharmacopeia guidelines. By adopting uniform, patient-centered labels, the program will positively impact all prescription users, and especially senior populations, persons with low literacy skills, and persons with complex medication regimens.
Additional community partners working on this project include the Pharmacy Society of Wisconsin and the University of Wisconsin-School of Pharmacy.
About the Advancing a Healthier Wisconsin Endowment
The Advancing a Healthier Wisconsin Endowment works to catalyze health improvement in Wisconsin and was created by funds generated from Blue Cross & Blue Shield United of Wisconsin’s conversion to a for-profit corporation. The Endowment’s Healthier Wisconsin Partnership Program funded the new awards as part of its continued work supporting partnerships between academics and community health and non-profit organizations for urban, rural and statewide health improvement projects in Wisconsin.
Since 2004, the Healthier Wisconsin Partnership Program has invested more than $50 million in 169 community-academic health improvement projects. More information on individual projects is available online: http://www.mcw.edu/Advancing-
About the Medical College of Wisconsin
The Medical College of Wisconsin is the state’s only private medical school and health sciences graduate school. Founded in 1893, it is dedicated to leadership and excellence in education, patient care, research and community engagement. More than 1,200 students are enrolled in MCW’s medical school and graduate school programs in Milwaukee, and 26 medical students are enrolled at MCW-Green Bay. A regional medical education campus is scheduled to open in Central Wisconsin in 2016. MCW’s School of Pharmacy will open in 2017 or 2018 with an initial class size of 60 students. A major national research center, MCW is the largest research institution in the Milwaukee metro area and second largest in Wisconsin. In FY 2014-15, faculty received approximately $158 million in external support for research, teaching, training and related purposes, of which approximately $139 million is for research. This total includes highly competitive research and training awards from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Annually, MCW faculty direct or collaborate on more than 3,200 research studies, including clinical trials. Additionally, more than 1,500 physicians provide care in virtually every specialty of medicine for more than 525,000 patients annually.
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