Results

The team of pharmacists at UMass Medical School’s Clinical Pharmacy Services is driven to improve our clients’ ability to deliver high-quality pharmaceutical care. While we understand the need to contain the ever-rising cost of medication, our overarching goal is to improve patient outcomes. Our experience and accomplishments demonstrate our team’s dedication to achieving that goal and to creating balanced medication management systems.

• Reducing Pharmacy Costs for Massachusetts Medicaid 
  Our aggressive cost-containment strategies — including an innovative program for increasing use of generics — have helped MassHealth, the Massachusetts Medicaid program, cut its pharmacy budget in half.
• Enhancing Medication Therapy Management with Motivational Interviewing
  Our call center team brings greater depth to patient education efforts with enhanced interviewing techniques.
• Design, Implement, Hand Off: A Client-Administered Medication Management Initiative
  While we run many programs on behalf of our clients, we also design and launch initiatives they can administer on their own.
• Balancing Cost of Behavioral Health Drugs with Need for Effective Treatment
  We identify and address polypharmacy with the dual goals of improving patient outcomes and reducing the quantity of behavioral health medications used whenever possible.
• Call Center Services for Commercial Plans
  We tailor our clinical call center services to meet the individual needs of our commercial health plan clients.
• Correctional Health Initiatives Lead to Significant Savings
  Our team provides the inmate population in Massachusetts with evidence-based pharmaceutical care that meets national clinical guidelines — and contains costs.
• Medication Management for Special Populations
  Our specially trained staff members save $4 for every $1 spent on overseeing the pharmaceutical care of medically fragile children receiving home nursing through MassHealth.
• Helping Pediatricians Manage ADHD Drugs
  We designed and launched an academic detailing program to ensure that physicians prescribe ADHD medications appropriately in children and adolescents.
• Prescriber Education Reduces Off-Season RSV Prophylaxis
  This Medicaid program wanted to encourage evidence-based prescribing for the prevention of respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), a respiratory illness prevalent in a specific season.