The ACCP Commentary titled “Innovation in Clinical Pharmacy Practice and Opportunities for Academic–Practice Partnership,” prepared by the 2013 ACCP Task Force on Practice Innovation, highlights the pioneering era of clinical pharmacy in the United States, summarizes current perceived barriers to innovation in practice, and identifies opportunities for how academic institutions and health care systems and organizations might collaborate to promote innovation that advances clinical pharmacy education, training, practice, and research.¹

The commentary features a timeline of innovative accomplishments that have resulted in the advancement of clinical pharmacy practice from 1928, when pharmacists began participating in patient rounds, to 2008, when pharmacists began serving as medication safety officers. It then discusses barriers to furthering the pursuit of new innovative opportunities to advance the profession. These include financial, cultural, and regulatory constraints (Figure).

Figure: Barriers to innovation in health care.¹

In the commentary, the Task Force identifies academic–practice partnership as one mechanism to address some of these constraints and promote practice innovation. It emphasizes that

• A culture change is needed to optimize the academic–practice partnership so that it is capable of addressing new paradigms of health care delivery through innovative practice. This culture change must include incentives to overcome common barriers for individuals and organizations and should align with patient-centered outcomes and high-quality medication management.
• The academic–practice partnership can foster innovation by providing effective leadership, adopting new approaches to professional education and training, and cultivating future innovators. To achieve an effective partnership, the partners must achieve a shared vision, collaborate in the education and training of the next generation of clinicians, and mutually embrace the responsibility for cultivating future innovators.

Although the content centers on pharmacy in the United States, the barriers and opportunities may be applicable to the pharmacy profession worldwide. It is especially relevant and useful as pharmacy practice continues to expand and as the need to develop new clinical practice services and advanced opportunities for experiential training of the future practitioner continues to be critical for preparing a competent workforce. Most nations are faced with the common challenge of limited resources needed to meet these needs. One example that was provided in the commentary and that would help both partners meet their unique patient care and education needs and advance their missions, while being financially beneficial to both, is the use of faculty and students, during their experiential experiences, from the academic partner to create a process and quality metrics for a medication reconciliation program for implementation at a health system partner that is experiencing high readmission rates or frequent errors because of poor medication reconciliation.

In addition to partnering on educational and practice activities, health care systems and organizations and academic institutions could collaborate to advance innovation in research. The health care systems and organizations provide the academicians access to patient populations, promoting opportunities for clinical research designed to improve patient outcomes. Personalized medicine was provided as one example of such an area for collaboration.

Of interest to professional leaders and innovators, the commentary defines innovation and its components and identifies key ingredients for academic–practice partnerships to successfully foster innovation.

1. American College of Clinical Pharmacy. Innovation in clinical pharmacy practice and opportunities for academic–practice partnership. Pharmacotherapy 2014;34:e45-e54.