Faculty of the University of Hawaii at Hilo Daniel K. Inouye College of Pharmacy were recently awarded a federal grant of $333,000 to develop a statewide infrastructure that identifies and works to correct existing medication use health disparities among Hawaii’s indigenous populations.
The grant is through the Minority Research Grant Program of the Centers for Medicare &Medicaid Services Office of Minority Health, which is part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
“In a previous research project funded by the CMS Innovation Center, called the Pharm2Pharm project, we demonstrated that pharmacists are essential to achieving higher quality, lower cost care in Hawaii,” Karen Pellegrin, DKICP director of continuing education and strategic planning, and the grant’s principal investigator, said in a press release.
“With this new CMS Health Equity award, we aim to adapt the Pharm2Pharm model and incorporate co-investigator Wes Sumida’s intervention funded through the University of Hawaii’s Center for Pacific Innovations, Knowledge and Opportunities to further address health disparities in Hawaii,” she said. “We also aim to establish statewide infrastructure, through the Hawaii Health Information Exchange, that can be used by any researcher to measure the impact of interventions designed to improve medication use.”
Sumida, DKICP associate professor, explained that his current research seeks to understand critical factors related to medication non-adherence in Native Hawaiian and Pacific Island patients with diabetes and heart disease.
“The goal is to develop a brief screening tool that can be used by pharmacists to better address potential medication adherence barriers in these patients when treating chronic disease. We will be utilizing these results in our work funded by this new grant,” he said in the press release.
Pellegrin noted that the Community Pharmacy Enhanced Services Network Hawaii is a key partner in this award. Part of a national network, CPESN Hawaii has 33 high-performing pharmacies, including KTA pharmacies, Pharmacare, and many others across all counties in Hawaii.
“The CPESN Hawaii mission is to collaborate with health care systems, providers, payers and the State of Hawaii Department of Health to optimize drug therapies to improve the health and wellness of our communities and reduce healthcare costs statewide. Kerri Okamura is the managing network facilitator for CPESN Hawaii,” Pellegrin said.
