On June 7, 2011, the National Consumers League (NCL) launched Script Your Future in Raleigh as part of a national campaign to educate consumers on the importance of medication adherence.
Andy Bowman, PharmD., assistant professor of pharmacy practice at Campbell University, participated in this launch as one of the speakers at the event along with Lieutenant Governor Walter Dalton and other medication adherence advocates.
“It is my sincere hope that the Script Your Future campaign will help patients identify and utilize the resource that is so easily accessible, their local community pharmacist,” says Bowman, who teaches student pharmacists patient counseling skills at the College of Pharmacy & Health Sciences.
More than one-third of medicine-related hospitalizations and almost 125,000 deaths in the United States each year are due to people not taking their medicine as directed. Nearly three out of four Americans report they do not always take their medications as directed and one out of three Americans never even fill their prescriptions. Non-adherence costs Americans and the health care system $300 billion each year.
“As a practicing pharmacist, our profession is in an excellent position to improve medication adherence through patient counseling,” says Bowman. “Pharmacists are some of America’s most trusted professionals. We as practitioners must use this to our advantage in building therapeutic alliances with our patients.”
The Script Your Future campaign is dedicated to promoting medication adherence education and awareness. Raleigh is one of six regional city markets where the campaign will pilot activities, research and advertising. The other regional markets are Baltimore, Md.; Birmingham, Ala.; Cincinnati, Ohio; Providence, R.I.; and Sacramento, Calif.
Bowman participates in national medication adherence awareness campaign