Student researchers work to lower medication costs
Nick Bainbridge // News Editor
Students at High Point University have a great deal of opportunities to work on projects in their fields of interest while they pursue an education. A group of HPU pharmacy students are conducting one such project, and are studying the local prices of medication that doctors from High Point Regional Hospital commonly prescribe to hospital patients before they are released.
Health insurance serves as a safety net to help cover the cost of prescription medicine on release from the hospital, but many do not have insurance plans that cover enough of the cost or are insured at all.
The prices of these medicines can vary depending on the pharmacy, which means that the pharmacy itself has a great deal to do with whether or not some people can afford their prescription.
According to the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonprofit health research organization, 22 percent of uninsured adults cited cost as the primary reason they did not purchase medication prescribed by their doctor.
Jessica Fernandez, a graduate pharmacy student at HPU, spearheads the operation at HPU to examine the pharmaceutical industry and the variability of medication costs. Fernandez began this project by analyzing the prices of 10 medicines commonly prescribed to patients discharged from the hospital, as well as the cost differences between pharmacies in the High Point area.
When Fernandez discovered that doctors were unaware of the prices of the medication they were prescribing and that patients were unaware of price variation, she decided to fill the gap in their knowledge. Fernandez said, “The goal of the research is to present this data to physicians at High Point Regional Hospital so they can offer cost-conscious alternatives to their patients. The end goal is to improve patients’ quality of life by helping them access their medications at affordable cost to help with medication adherence and avoid being readmitted to the hospital.”
Fernandez worked with her research team on the project. Fellow graduate students Sara Willis and C. J. Puleo contacted local pharmacies and requested data relating to the prices of common prescription medication.
Now that Fernandez has gathered the bulk of the data, she and her team are working to analyze it and develop a presentation to present their findings to experts and patients alike.
While Fernandez wishes to help patients find the best locations for affordable medication, the researchers have been exercising caution to ensure that they remain impartial in their analysis.
“We are not planning on promoting any pharmacy over another, as that would be unfair to the pharmacies that cooperated with us,” explained Fernandez. “We only want to help patients access the medication they need.”
Fernandez has been working under the guidance of Dr. Julie Cooper, associate professor of Clinical Sciences at HPU. She has allowed the graduate students to be independent in their research, and serves as a source of advice rather than the leader of the operation.
Cooper has been following Fernandez’s efforts closely and has been thoroughly impressed. She believes that the data from her research can prove useful in her work as a pharmacist.
“We serve a lot of patients who can’t afford their health care, so as a pharmacist, helping our patients access medication is one essential part of how we take care of them,” Cooper said. “What Jessica has done is come alongside me and look at the opportunities to help me by looking at the costs of medications.”