Farris Laboratory

Medication Adherence. I have worked with graduate students to develop a new measure of reasons for medication non-adherence, and we also established different forms/types of non-adherence based upon these reasons. This work, importantly, established a belief-component to forgetting as a reason for medication non-adherence. This set of questions is part of the patient-reported outcome measure that we have used in our work studying adherence to oral anti-cancer agents. Implementing this tool in routine practice is the next step in our work.

Pharmacists’ Role. For 30 years, I have studied the impact of pharmacists’ care on processes of care and patient outcomes. I studied the impact of pharmacists’ medication review and medication recommendations to physicians in community pharmacy settings in the mid-2000s, showing that pharmacists may impact medication adherence. As well, I have reported how a comprehensive medication review may impact medication utilization and described new models of pharmacists’ care. We have showed the impact of pharmacists in the patient-centered medical home. I am currently working with POEM (Pharmacists Optimizing Oncology Care Excellence in Michigan) to determine how oncologists pharmacists impact the care they receive when taking oral anti-cancer agents.

^{From our manuscript: Davidson, Ismail, Gatwood, ezt al. J Onc Pharm Pract 2024, doi: 10.1177/10781552241279303.}

Inter-professional Education and Practice. A newer stream of research will focus on research in UM’s Center for Interprofessional Education. We will evaluate the impact of our core curriculum, expand and evaluate the experiential experiences, and establish community partnerships for trainees to work in team-based care.