Focused Investigator Training (FIT) Program
The annual FIT Program is an intensive 1-week hands-on
program for up to 25 experienced pharmacist investigators
who have not yet been awarded significant peer-reviewed
extramural funding as a principal investigator. The 2009 FIT Program is slated for July 11–July 16, 2009, at the University
of Utah College of Pharmacy.
Research and Scholarship Development
Certificate Program
The ACCP Academy Research and Scholarship Development
Certificate Program is an educational program aimed at
developing basic clinical research and scholarly abilities.
This program is an extension of the previous “Research
Training Curriculum” developed by ACCP in the late 1990s.
The primary target audience for this program is residencytrained
clinical pharmacists who practice in a setting where
research and scholarly activity are expectations of their
position.
PPD Bioanalytical Fluid and Tissue Sample Grant
The Research Institute is pleased to announce a new funding
opportunity coming in winter 2008 for full and associate
ACCP members. The PPD Bioanalytical Fluid and Tissue
Sample Grant Award supports the bioanalytical research
efforts of ACCP member researchers. PPD is a leading global
contract research organization (CRO) providing discovery,
development, and post-approval services as well as compound
collaborating programs. The primary purpose of the in-kind
support grant is to allow ACCP members the use of stateof-
the-art PPD laboratory facilities for conducting their
sample analyses. This grant is for in-kind support at either
the Richmond, Virginia, or Madison, Wisconsin, site of PPD
using their advanced state-of-the-art facilities.
For more information, go to http://www.accpri.org/
investigator/index.aspx.
Research Institute Introduces ACCP’s
Practice-Based Research Network (PBRN)
ACCP and the Research Institute are committed to the
creation of a national clinical pharmacy practice-based
research network (PBRN) by 2009. As more information
regarding the creation of ACCP’s PBRN becomes available,
we will share that via the Web site and a listserve. If you are
new to PBRNs, we encourage you to visit our new Web site,
http://www.accpri.org/pbrn/faqs.aspx.
Our 2008 goals are to hire a part-time network director,
create a listserve, and begin registering individuals and
PBRNs with us. Recruiting for the network director will be
announced in September 2008.
As an ACCP member involved in providing clinical
pharmacy services, you are invited to join the ACCP PBRN
listserve. You will receive updates from the ACCP Research
Institute as we prepare to launch our PBRN. The listserve is
open to all ACCP members. ACCP members are also invited
to fill out the online registry tool. Although registration is
not a guarantee your site will be selected as a research site,
we are looking to build the pool of candidates and sites
interested in working on PBRN issues. The registry and
listserve are expected to launch in October 2008.
Review Criteria for Initial types of
ACCP PBRN Research Questions
- Address a major issue with an impact on public health
that is relevant to key policy-makers on a national level.
- Make it doable within 1 year, yet simple and elegant in
design.
- Make it testable using scientifically rigorous,
measurable, hard-objective outcomes (not surrogate
measures) that have internal validity.
- Do not allow it to be addressed by any other research
methods outside a clinical pharmacy–based PBRN
framework.
- Make it relevant to clinical pharmacy and in alignment
with the ACCP research agenda.
- Make it align across clinical practice venues and capable
of implementation in various practice sites/reproducible
in various practice sites.
- Make it interventional rather than observational.
For more information, go to http://www.accpri.org/pbrn/
index.aspx.