| by DELTARx |
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 Angela Tice Pharm.D.
Assistant Professor of Pharmacy Practice
Drake University
Clinical Specialist
Iowa Heart Center
West Des Moines, Iowa
The goal: a national model for a state of the art patient education center. Dr. Angela Tice and her colleagues at the Iowa Heart Center in Des Moines, Iowa, are beginning the development of what they hope will be a national standard for the future of patient education. The team of physicians, pharmacist, and pharmacy students are working together to improve the care for cardiac outpatients through programs for smoking cessation, home blood pressure monitoring, patient education, and adherence assistance.
Drs. William Wickemeyer and Richard Marcus are the primary physicians leading this initiative. Their common link with Dr. Tice is the desire to motivate patients to take charge of their own health. With the pressure on these physicians to see a high volume of patients, they have turned to pharmacists as team members for quality patient education. Through this new strategy they hope to help more patients reach their goals of heart healthy lifestyles.
Dr. Tice meets one-on-one with patients in person and over the phone. Motivational interviewing will be a key strategy for risk reduction with patients. This process leads patients to help themselves because ultimately they manage their own medications, lifestyle and health.
During her residency Dr. Tice found patient management to be the most enjoyable of her responsibilities. As a faculty member at Drake University she has helped several pharmacy clerkship sites develop patient care practices through involvement with the Iowa Pharmaceutical Case Management program, Iowa Priority, and Outcomes Pharmaceutical Health Care. Her new practice with Iowa Heart Center is another opportunity to mentor and challenge the status quo. “Here physicians are my source for patients. In the community you have a patient base of your own,” says Dr. Tice. She believes that pharmacists working with physician providers demonstrates the benefits pharmacy on the health care system quicker than normally seen in the community pharmacy setting. She hopes that through this clinic practice she will develop positive relationships with physicians so that when a pharmacy calls from the community the physicians will think, “maybe this pharmacist has something good to say as well.” This practice is a new opportunity to educate providers as well as help patients.
To learn more about motivational interviewing, Dr. Tice recommends the Bruce Berger article on motivational interviewing in U.S. Pharmacist.
Motivational Interviewing Helps Patients Confront Change
Persuasive Communication Part 1
Persuasive Communication Part 2
Entrepreneurial Leadership Analysis:
1. How did Dr. Tice develop this concept?
Dr. Tice did not face some of the initial struggles that many entrepreneurs do because she had the support of Drake University’s College of Pharmacy and the physician clinic that requested her services. Once at the site though, how did they develop the concept? Her office is amongst the offices and patient care rooms of the physicians and support staff, so she is regularly seen, building a team atmosphere. The clinic has also implemented procedures to allow Dr. Tice to spend time with patients when they arrive for physician appointments. While in some ventures new services and processes must be developed, this setting allowed Dr. Tice to incorporate herself and the new services she offers into the existing processes of the functioning clinic.
2. How did Dr. Tice determine the required resources?
As this new structure of pharmacist services in a physician’s clinic develops Dr. Tice is in the process of determining the required resources. Utilizing her previous experiences as a preceptor and clinical pharmacist in the community setting Dr. Tice identified the initial resources needed to provide the smoking cessation services being offered to patients. Through her regular presence and services she will continue to identify resources needed to enhance and supplement her services. By the end of the 2005-2006 academic year Dr. Tice hopes to add services to assist patients in home blood pressure monitoring with future plans focused on a patient education and medication adherence center.
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