West Virginia University (WVU)

West Virginia University (WVU) is located in Morgantown, a college town nested in the hills of north central West Virginia. Morgantown, which combines natural beauty, cultural diversity, and hometown friendliness, is about 70 miles south of Pittsburgh and about 200 miles west of Baltimore and Washington D.C. The nearby mountains and lakes provide opportunities for camping, hiking, boating, and skiing. In 1997, Morgantown was selected as one of the best small towns in the nation for its quality of life. At WVU, you will find a friendly, safe environment in a picturesque setting. USA Today ranked WVU among the top five institutions in the country for campus safety.

West Virginia University was established in 1867 and is one of 43 public universities in the country that serve their states as land-grant research and teaching institutions. The university has over 15 colleges and schools, and the campus contains 143 buildings on over 1,000 acres with student enrollment of over 26,000. WVU is one of only four state universities in the country to have graduated 21 or more Rhodes Scholars. In 1997, a pharmacy student was selected to the USA Today All-USA College Academic first team, as one of the top 20 college seniors in the nation. West Virginia University is designated as a Research 1 University by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, which ranks it among the top 3 percent of the 3,600 accredited institutions in the U.S.

WVU School of Pharmacy

The WVU School of Pharmacy, the only pharmacy school in West Virginia, participates fully in the functions of a landgrant university: research, teaching, and service. The School is situated within a large state-assisted health sciences center which includes a 350-bed teaching hospital, psychiatric hospital, rehabilitation hospital, and regional cancer center. The School has 38 full-time faculty plus over 10 staff members, and offers the Doctor of Pharmacy (Pharm.D.) professional degree, and M.S. and Ph.D. graduate degrees in the pharmaceutical sciences.

The Department

The Department of Pharmaceutical Systems and Policy at WVU consists of 5 full-time and 9 part-time faculty members and also includes the office of Pharmacy Continuing Education. The Rational Drug Therapy Program (RDTP), also a part of the Department, provides the prior authorization and policy analysis support for the West Virginia Bureau of Medical Services (Medicaid). The Accessible Intelligent Medication Strategies (AIMS) program in the department is an academic detailing service that is being implemented in Morgantown and Charleston on behalf of the Public Employees Insurance Agency (PEIA).

The Department has a rapidly growing Ph.D. graduate program, with the majority of graduate students supported by external research funding. Established ties with a Centers for Disease Control funded WVU Prevention Research Center, the West Virginia Bureau of Medical Services (Medicaid), Public Employees Insurance Agency, Veterans Administration in West Virginia, several pharmaceutical corporations, nearby Mylan Pharmaceuticals and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (N.I.O.S.H), and several managed care organizations offer potential opportunities for collaborative research. In addition, established graduate programs in business, public health, sociology, education, communication, and public administration provide opportunities for multidisciplinary graduate studies and research.

Current research grants and contracts received by department faculty exceed $1.8 million.

Program Mission

The Pharmaceutical Systems and Policy graduate program of the School of Pharmacy at WVU is committed to the School's mission to seek improvement for human health, with particular attention to the needs of West Virginia citizens, by educating highly qualified individuals to conduct research that advances knowledge in the pharmaceutical sciences.

Program Goals

• To prepare highly qualified graduate students for careers in academia, industry, government, and institutional settings.
  
• To advance research in health outcomes research and pharmacoeconomics, pharmaceutical care provision, and health promotion and disease prevention.
  
• To participate in scholarly research by collaborating on projects with faculty and students within the University and with researchers, administrators, and marketers outside the University.
  
• To provide consultative services to pharmacists, the pharmaceutical industry, government health agencies, and other interested constituents in the areas of faculty and graduate student expertise.

The Program

The doctor of philosophy degree requires a minimum of 72 semester credit hours (including those transferred hours from the student’s Master’s work). The 72 hours include a minimum of 60 credits of course work plus 12 hours of dissertation research. The department’s course requirements for the doctoral program include: (a) core courses, (b) elective courses in major and minor areas, (c) one hour of department graduate seminar each semester of the program duration, and (d) dissertation research hours. For a doctoral student to be classified as a Ph.D. candidate, he/she must: (i) have completed all graduate course requirements stipulated in the plan of study, (ii) have a minimum of 3.00 GPA, (iii) have passed both the written and oral qualifying examinations, and (iv) fulfill both teaching and scholarly activities expected of a good-standing graduate student. After satisfactory completion of oral and written qualifying examinations, the student also needs to complete and present a dissertation research proposal in order to demonstrate his/her ability to conduct independent research. Students with a Bachelor degree and those without a research Masters degree who are admitted to the program are required to complete a MS en route to a PhD. Individuals with previous research experience may request to opt out of completing a MS by successfully completing a pre-qualifying exam administered by department faculty.

Research

The Department of Pharmaceutical Systems and Policy has developed a reputation for high quality intervention research in pharmaceutical and health care administration. Research in the Department of Pharmaceutical Systems and Policy (PSP) has focused on the enhancement of rural health care delivery and pharmacy practice. West Virginia has not been immune to recent national health care trends such as the expansion of managed care and an increasing focus on quality improvement while cutting health care costs. PSP research expertise is concentrated in the areas of Pharmacoeconomics and Health Outcomes Research.  Pharmacoeconomics aims to promote the development and study of health economics as applied disease management and optimum drug therapy. Outcomes research refers to the scientific design, data collection, and analysis of the end results of medical care. It focuses on quality, cost-effectiveness and the effect of treatment on quality of life in patients. Outcomes research evaluates the effectiveness of health interventions through changes in outcomes such as improvements in patient functional status, satisfaction with care, and mortality. PSP studies focus on how healthcare services and pharmaceutical products impact economic, clinical and humanistic outcomes.

For a listing of the PSP department's ongoing and recently completed research projects; Click here.

For more information on PSP faculty and their research interests; Click here.