The Boston Globe’s weekly Ocean State Innovators column features a Q&A with Rhode Island innovators who are starting new businesses and nonprofits, conducting groundbreaking research, and reshaping the state’s economy. Send tips and suggestions to reporter Alexa Gagosz at alexa.gagosz@globe.com.
In the latest collaboration between higher education institutions and local hospitals, the University of Rhode Island’s College of Pharmacy announced last week that it would establish a research hub in Providence that will expand its research programs at the Veterans Administration Medical Center.
Kerry LaPlante, a professor who will become the dean of the College of Pharmacy in January, said this research partnership will give URI “direct access to patients and patient samples.”
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Q. Why does this partnership matter?
LaPlante: For many years, faculty at URI have worked at the Providence VA. During their time caring for veterans and taking students on rotation, it was natural to just start doing research together better. With this new collaboration, it also formalizes our ability to have more access to patient samples.
Q. How so?
A. The National VA database includes information from up to eight million veterans. This collaboration allows us access to that database, which is an opportunity for big data research. As clinicians, pharmacists, and researchers, we ask these really important clinical questions, but it can usually be challenging to have access to patients, samples, and data to actually answer them. Now, we do have access.
Q. Brown University and Lifespan Corp. [the state’s largest hospital owner] are very focused on cancer care. Care New England [the second largest hospital owner in Rhode Island] has put a lot of investments into drugs that can tackle Alzheimer’s disease. What could this collaboration focus on for you?
A. One of the strengths of Rhode Island is certainly our expertise in neuroscience, Alzheimer’s, and aging. Rhode Island has more people over the age of 80 than most states. But we also have a longstanding history of focusing research on infectious diseases and immunology, which is also what my research program is focused on. With that expertise, we can look at microbiome work, and ask how the food you eat and antibiotic use affects your overall health.
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Q. How does this collaboration fit into the university’s upcoming research partnerships?
A. It’s our vision to advance health and transform communities. This partnership really helps us advance health care to veterans, including those outside of Rhode Island. It’s in its infancy, but the College of Pharmacy is developing a partnership with Lifespan to increase pharmacy services to the most vulnerable in Rhode Island. We’ll be ready to talk about that more in the near future.
Q. You’re going to be starting as the dean of the College of Pharmacy in January. What are some of your goals?
A. I have a vision for the future of the profession, and not just in Rhode Island. Within five years, I want to be working with our national organizations to have pharmacists with our expertise as medication experts and medication facilitators to have provider status. We have six years of training, you get a doctor of pharmacy, and pharmacists should be able to be the person who’s managing complex medications and be prescribing.
There’s not a lot of primary care physicians or nurse practitioners out there. Pharmacists should be able to take a role in managing complex medications for those who are on 13, 14, or 15 different medications. That’s a lot of drug interactions that need to be managed by a pharmacist.
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Q. Why can’t pharmacists be considered providers right now?
A. The American Medical Association has fought proposed federal regulation to block us from taking that role. [As an industry], we’re trying really hard to take that resolution away, but the lobbying is a problem. Breaking through those barriers, politically, is a challenge.
Alexa Gagosz can be reached at alexa.gagosz@globe.com. Follow her @alexagagosz and on Instagram @AlexaGagosz.