Pittsburgh college opens pharmacy to aid neighbors

Associated Press

Posted on March 31, 2012 at 6:00 PM

Updated today at 2:01 AM

PITTSBURGH (AP) ? A university has stepped in to fill a difficult role ? delivering basic health care and medications in a poor inner city neighborhood.

Dusquesne University has opened a pharmacy to serves its neighbors in Pittsburgh's Hill District, which hadn't had one for years. School officials say the program is the first of its kind in the nation, and they hope it will be a model for other inner cities.

"It's not a browse-the-aisles pharmacy" with soft drinks and candy for sale, said J. Douglas Bricker, dean of the Duquesne School of Pharmacy. Instead, the focus is solely on patient care.

"It's up-front counseling," said Terri Kroh, the pharmacy director. That means that when a new patient comes in with a prescription, he or she will first go with a staff member to a private room for a review of personal health issues. That way the pharmacy takes on a more active role in supporting both the primary care doctor and the patient.

"We do a lot of cholesterol screening, and then counsel patients on healthy diet, healthy lifestyle," all for free, Kroh said.

"It's wonderful. I don't think I can say more about them," said Barbara Strothers, a longtime area resident. "They take their time and explain."

Strothers, 55, said she's sent many friends to the pharmacy, and she feels it's helping with efforts to revitalize the community, which has suffered from crime and poverty in recent decades.

She said the pharmacists not only fill her prescriptions, but take the time to find the lowest-cost medication and monitor her progress and needs.

Bricker said the experiment was part of a long-term plan to be better neighbors to people who live near the school, which is in downtown Pittsburgh. But it's also based on some bottom-line realities of the health care business, where everyone is trying to find ways to deliver quality patient care yet control costs.

"It's built around a business model," Bricker said, adding that quality, preventive care "decreases emergency visits and hospital stays."

Louis Zangara, a pharmacist at the Hill District office, said no one was talking about such models when he first started practicing 25 years ago.

"This has become a real patient-centered type of care," Zangara said. "The whole profession has changed, but this is the direction that it is moving in. I think we're on the leading edge of that."

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