A passion for health care began early for Nicole Henry, PharmD, an assistant professor of practice at the University of Arizona R. Ken Coit College of Pharmacy. That passion was moved to reality though when tragedy showed her where she could help her community the most.
A career in health care always seemed to be in her future. In high school, she delivered meals to a senior center and volunteered in a hospice program, where she came to know many of the medications the patients were taking.
Ultimately, however, it was that tragic event that solidified her choice of career. A family friend she’d been helping care for while she was an undergraduate suffered a brain hemorrhage and fall due to a severe interaction between two medications. That friend passed away as a result, and for Henry, his death made clear her way forward: she would pursue pharmacology with a goal of providing medication counseling and education as a pharmacist.
Patient-centered care
In 2013 – her first year as a student at the Coit College of Pharmacy – Henry noticed the college didn’t have a student chapter of the American Society of Consultant Pharmacists, so she took the initiative to start one. The group organized on-site consultation sessions with interdisciplinary teams drawn from the four U of A Health Sciences colleges in Tucson, helping older adults better understand their medications and communicate with their doctors.
Those early experiences made her realize she could have the greatest impact on the health care system by working for change from two directions: first as a district leader for CVS Health, where she is responsible for oversight, hiring, onboarding and talent development; and second in teaching the Introduction to Pharmacy Practice course at the College of Pharmacy in Phoenix.
In addition to teaching, she delivers guest lectures in management courses, sharing her expertise and insights as a working pharmacist and industry leader. It’s not a common combination: Of the more than 40,000 physicians, pharmacists, nurses and nurse practitioners that CVS Health employs, Henry alone melds those two worlds.
The perspective from front-line pharmacy has shaped Henry’s teaching to focus on patient-centered care. For example, working with older adults, she has frequently encountered polypharmacy, in which patients are prescribed multiple medications to treat a single condition, such as high cholesterol, high blood pressure or various heart problems. As a professor, she emphasizes the importance of simplifying medication regimens by reducing duplication and exploring combination therapies.
“It’s really about how you communicate with patients to make sure that they understand where you’re coming from,” Henry said. “Are we thinking through how patients are going to perceive messaging? Are we creating simplicity so they can truly understand us? I want my students to look at health care through the lens of both the patient side and the business side, because all of it needs to come together for care to be successful.”
“Top-of-license” pharmacy
Henry argues that pharmacists should be recognized as health care providers at the federal level. Today, each state determines the professional activities allowed for licensed pharmacists, but provider status is a federal legal designation that would dramatically change the national calculus of health care delivery and economics.
In health care, this idea of optimizing capacity is captured in the phrase “working at top of license,” the concept that employees at any level should spend their time on tasks that require the full extent of what they know, not doing what could be done by someone who doesn’t have their education and training.
Expanded roles for pharmacists could also solve problems for the nation’s increasing strain on a too-small workforce of physicians. The Association of American Medical Colleges estimates that the U.S. could face a shortage of more than 120,000 physicians by the end of this decade. When the Coit College of Pharmacy and the U of A College of Nursing recently joined forces to offer a dual-degree program combining the PharmD with advanced nursing degrees, it was partly to help address this looming crisis.
Coming full circle
Today, Henry’s work has come full circle, even as it continues to break new ground. She was once the student organizing consultation clinics at assisted living homes and throwing them sock-hop fundraisers; She now mentors a new generation of learners into the community to set up clinics and volunteer at health fairs, where they provide free diabetes assessments, cholesterol checks, HIV/AIDS screening, depression awareness education and other services.
Nothing in a classroom replaces the practical education that arises in those unscripted, hands-on, real-world settings. Students gain critical thinking and problem-solving skills, but just as importantly, they learn to listen, relate and build connections. For Henry, it always comes back to patient-centered care.
