URI grad, North Kingstown resident first to hold Thomas M. Ryan/CVS Chair in Community Pharmacy

KINGSTON, R.I. -- Dec. 14, 1998 -- The nation's largest pharmacy chain thinks so highly of Susan E. Andrade it recommended that she be the first to occupy The Thomas M. Ryan/CVS Chair in Community Pharmacy at the University of Rhode Island.

Acting on that recommendation, Louis Luzzi, dean of URI's College of Pharmacy, selected Andrade to fill the chair.

The chair is designed to help URI expand its area of excellence in community pharmacy research and to improve health care in Rhode Island and the nation. URI's goal to raise $1.5 million in private donations, $800,000 of which has come from the CVS Corporation and Ryan, was to attract a national expert in the area of community pharmacy to fill the chair.

In Andrade, an assistant professor of pharmacoepidemiology at URI since 1994, the University already had a national leader in its midst.

"Tom Ryan is very impressed with Susan," said Luzzi of the president and executive officer of CVS and URI pharmacy alumnus.

"She is a national leader," Luzzi said. "Scientists and companies seek her out all the time. At this time, she has to turn down work. Susan is the first of her kind, a registered pharmacist trained at the highest levels in epidemiology," Luzzi said. "She's developed excellent research skills in evaluating pharmacy practices as they relate to improvements in pharmacy care models."

Andrade is a 1988 graduate of URI's College Pharmacy who went on to earn her doctor of science in epidemiology from Harvard University's School of Public Health.

The 33-year-old Warren native and current North Kingstown resident said she is honored to be selected the first Ryan/CVS chair.

Despite being a relative newcomer to the URI faculty, Andrade has established herself as a top-flight researcher. She is working with CVS; Harvard Pilgrim Health Care in Boston and the Fallon Clinic in Worcester.

Much of her focus is on medications that lower cholesterol and on patients' ability to follow their drug regimes, whether they be for asthma, diabetes or heart disease.

"My goal is to improve patient care," Andrade said.

She said the University has already done numerous studies on how to improve patients' compliance with their drug regimes. Simply defined, medication compliance is taking a prescription medication on the correct schedule and at the correct dosage.

"But you don't just focus on the drugs and the pharmacy," Andrade said. "You look at rates of hospitalization and the rate of physician visits."

In addition to her research duties, Andrade teaches undergraduate and graduate pharmacy students at URI and has been in demand as a speaker at national conferences on such topics as "Desktop Manipulation of Large Health Care Databases", and "Statistical Issues in Clinic Research."

A graduate of the former Warren High School, Andrade and her husband Rick, also a University of Rhode Island graduate, have a 17-month-old daughter, Allyssa.

For Further Information: Dave Lavallee 401-874-2116