Health Services & Policy Research Pathway

Why HSPR?

The scope of pharmacy practice continues to expand, as seen in the transition from the traditional dispensing role to a greater emphasis on how pharmacists support patients to improve self-management of medication therapy and chronic disease.

Increasingly, however, pharmacists are also taking a more prominent role in the design and analysis of health services research and resultant health policy initiatives. They are agents of change in the healthcare arena, applying essential skills to define population-based solutions that improve clinical, economic and humanistic outcomes for patient populations.

Student pharmacists seeking to define how they will make their future contributions to health care will be best positioned with a solid background in essential skills needed for developing research approaches for evaluating health services and for framing health policy decision making.

The pathway curriculum develops the needed skill sets for a career in pharmacy that applies an integrated approach to advancing patient care through research and policy development.

The lower student/faculty ratio and tailored curriculum offers a special opportunity for students to acquire essential HSPR skills.

What is Health Services and Policy Research?

Health services and policy research examines how people get access to health care, how much care costs, and what happens to patients as a result of this care. Two principal goals of health services and policy research are to:

• Identify the most effective ways to organize, manage, finance, and deliver high quality health services;
• Study the impact of policies that affect health services to determine their effectiveness and limitations.

Go To: Pathway Curriculum