Ball, Miller honored for home-study publication

Jennifer Ball and Erin Miller were recognized by the American College of Clinical Pharmacy for their work toward the publication of a home-study series for ambulatory care pharmacists. 

Ball, an associate professor in pharmacy practice, and Miller, an assistant professor in allied and population health, were selected to write a book chapter of the association’s Ambulatory Care Self-Assessment Program on "Opioid Overdose Prevention" for its neurology book. It is an area Ball and Miller both focus on through their work with the START-SD project, which focuses on opioid use disorder and psychostimulant use disorder.  

The chapter focuses on the role of community and ambulatory care pharmacists in addressing the opioid crisis.  It covers the pathophysiology of opioid-induced harms, management of opioid overdose, how to identify and approach patients at risk for opioid overdoses, harm reduction measures, practice management concerns, and the advocacy efforts pharmacists can take.

The home study module came out in November.

The studies are taken by pharmacists who must complete 100 hours of approved continuing education within a seven-year period in order to maintain board certification in a specialized area.

A number of other faculty have done similar work. Also in 2022, Jeremy Daniel, an associate professor in pharmacy practice, published chapters in a continuing education course for the pharmacotherapy board certification and a review course for the board certification in psychiatric pharmacy; and  Kari Taggart, an assistant professor in pharmacy practice,  co-wrote the chapter “Acute Illness Scoring Systems” for the ACCP Critical Care Pharmacotherapy, Second Edition.

In 2020, professor Stacy Peters published a chapter on cystic fibrosis and in 2018 professor Tadd Hellwig and associate professor Amy Heiberger wrote a book chapter for the pediatric pharmacist self-assessment program on the topic of treatment of pediatric obesity.