AACP › News & Media › Academic Pharmacy Now

On a Mission

AACP Article

As the 2024 NAM Pharmacy Fellow, Dr. Jennifer Bacci relishes the opportunity to tout the benefits that community pharmacies offer.

By Joseph A. Cantlupe

There are not many aspects of pharmacy in healthcare that Dr. Jennifer Bacci, endowed associate professor in innovative pharmacy practice at the University of Washington School of Pharmacy, has not studied, written about or lectured on, a testament to her varied interests as an academic. After working in community pharmacy, Bacci said she turned to academia with the “goal of working across partners to accelerate community pharmacy transformation.” She has examined everything from closing gaps in care, targeting medication adherence, ensuring vaccinations, evaluating opioid use, and treating diabetes and epilepsy. “All of that is with the focus on being responsive to the needs of community pharmacy practice and patients. I always have been driven by what I’m hearing from those frontline practitioners about the things that are impacting their day-to-day practice and keeping them from being able to provide the care to patients that they want to provide.”

That community pharmacy perspective deeply touches her teaching, and that thrust is expected to be a strong part of her work after being named one of seven outstanding health professionals for the class of 2024 National Academy of Medicine (NAM) Fellowship. The fellows are chosen based on their professional qualifications, reputations and accomplishments, as well as the relevance of their current field expertise to NAM’s work.

Bacci is thrilled by the recognition and the prospect of working with NAM. “I think it takes a little while to sink in—it’s a great honor. There are many incredible professionals in pharmacy who are deserving of this.” She decided to apply for the fellowship “because it is merging what is happening in community pharmacy and my own professional growth. I’ve been really focused on how we grow patient care and community pharmacies. This fellowship is that opportunity to really focus on the policy piece for me but also to raise awareness within health policy circles about community pharmacy and what’s happening.”

Bacci and the other scholars will continue their primary academic or research posts while engaging with the National Academies health and science policy work over a two-year period. They will also work with an expert study committee or roundtable related to their professional interests, including contributing to reports or other products. A flexible research grant will be awarded to every fellow.

Opening Doors

“We always talk about the community pharmacies as the front door to the profession,” Bacci said. “There’s a wide spectrum of what it means to be a community pharmacy; not every community pharmacy looks the same. There’s a lot more that we can do [at a community pharmacy] than say, ‘here are your medications, I’ll see you next month.’”

Patients go in and out of pharmacies without appointments, asking pharmacists about medications and illnesses. Surely, pharmacies are intimately involved with the public, but they face myriad issues around staffing, medication shortages and safety concerns. They are also the focus of much debate regarding pharmacist payments, which have been stagnant or decreasing. In addition, workplace conditions and stress are taking a toll on efforts to recruit new hires, according to academic studies. Those issues are impacting the ability to train and retain pharmacy employees.

But the demand for pharmacies continues to rise, leading to new opportunities, particularly for recent graduates. Through it all, “community pharmacy is at a very important point in terms of what the future looks like,” Bacci emphasized. “I’m really focused on how we grow patient care in communities, how policy frames what we can do in the community and raising awareness within health policy circles about community pharmacy. We’re not trying to replace physicians, but we have different and complementary skills so when we work together with physicians and other healthcare professionals, that’s when we can provide the best care possible. Our unique knowledge and skills are important to

Dr. Jennifer Bacci

“It’s an important time for us as a profession to own what happens next, because if we don’t step up to create the future for ourselves, then other people will. That’s the message I try to communicate to my students. There is an opportunity to come into community pharmacy and help create the future.”

—Dr. Jennifer Bacci

She pointed out that the issue is not just that community pharmacies are closing but that we are seeing consolidation across healthcare. “The community pharmacy is the last remaining healthcare facility in many rural and even urban centers,” she pointed out. Of course, the issues go beyond patient care, particularly related to pay. “Payment drives so much—we can’t have payment without changing how we practice but we can’t change how we practice without payment, so they really go hand in hand.”

As a fellow, Bacci will dedicate about 10 to 20 percent of her time to work related to the fellowship. “The National Academy of Medicine is a group of incredible scholars who come together to make recommendations and consensus statements that are important for policymakers and other governing bodies. It’s exciting to see the process of how we synthesize evidence and make impactful recommendations,” Bacci said. “There’s not a checklist of things that I need to accomplish, but the main goal is to embed into one or two projects that the National Academies are working on and grow my skillset in health policy and networking.”

A Champion for Community-Based Care

Bacci attended the University of Pittsburgh School of Pharmacy and completed her Pharm.D. in 2011, followed by a PGY community-based pharmacy residency with the University of Pittsburgh and Rite Aid. After working full time in community practice, she returned to Pitt Pharmacy to complete a Postgraduate Fellowship in Community Pharmacy Research and obtain her MPH.

“I think what started my trajectory toward becoming a pharmacist was being diagnosed with asthma really young. I grew up in a time where there were significant advancements in the treatments for asthma, so I saw how it impacted my own life,” she noted. “So, when it was time to pick a career, I was really interested in healthcare, and becoming a pharmacist seemed to make a lot of sense.”

As a faculty member at the University of Washington School of Pharmacy for the past nine years, she has focused her research on evaluating innovative patient care models in community pharmacy practices, including childhood and adult vaccinations, point of care testing, chronic disease management, pharmacist prescribing, medical billing, monitoring drug interactions and medication adherence. Bacci has cultivated partnerships with community pharmacy leaders in Washington State and collaborates on various practice models to address needs and challenges faced by practitioners and patients to amplify the positive impact of community-based pharmacy teams.

Bacci teaches first-year student pharmacists, including a course series called Foundations of Being a Pharmacist. In addition, she covers patient care process, introductory therapeutic materials and professional identity and leadership. She attempts to help students understand the intricacies and mindset of the profession. Bacci calls it the “intentional work of understanding as an individual how your personal identity now merges with this new professional identity as you become a pharmacist and find joy and align your value and strengths in your work.” In advancing pharmacy education, she reminds students to be aware of the population they will be serving and helps them feel confident about the path they have chosen.

“How we engage patients is one of the most important things we do to make sure people use medications effectively,” Bacci said. “I know that there are a lot of emerging roles that we would like to see pharmacists pursue, so we have to think about how to make sure we’re preparing our graduates for that. Pharmacy practice looks different in every state, and we want to make sure that every graduate is prepared for the highest level of practice.”

Joseph A. Cantlupe is a freelance writer based in Washington, D.C.

 

Back to Top