Meeting began with introductions around the table.  The agenda was circulated and reviewed for additions.  Chuck then asked for the minutes to be reviewed and approved.  Minutes were approved with one change.  The reference to the Doak, Cuppett and Poling proposal should be #3.
 
 
 
 

I. Chuck then introduced John Corkrean, RPh who asked to speak to the committee to give his prospective as a Pharmacy Field Faculty member.  John is the owner of Staats Pharmacy and has participated in both the Kellogg Project and the RHEP program.  During the time he was a Kellogg Field Professor, the program paid $22,000 (plus benefits) for a .5 FTE Pharmacy Field Professor.  During that period, the Kellogg Field Professors were employees of WVU and paid directly by the School of Pharmacy.  When Kellogg ended and the program merged with RHI to become the Rural Health Education Partnerships, the benefits were eliminated and there was not increase in salary.  Also, he was no longer paid directly by WVU.  He is now an Adjunct Clinical Professor at the WVU School of Pharmacy and receives no funding from WVU.

The School of Pharmacy Ambulatory Care Rotation requires the students to be at his location full-time during the rotation.  One Pharmacist has been assigned to work with the students.  The students spend no time in the Pharmacy dispensing and this creates a drain on administration since they don’t provide service in the Pharmacy.  The rotation is more health prevention and education oriented than the Clinical Pharmacy rotation.  The Ambulatory Care Rotation is a mandatory rotation for WVU PharmD students.  He feels as though he is subsidizing student education from his facility and receiving no benefit for this service.  John questions who should be paying for this student education.  The PharmD students are at the rotation for 40 hours per week and must have a Pharmacist with them during this rotation.  He usually has 1-2 students at a time year round.  Staats Pharmacy is only one of four Ambulatory Care Rotation locations in the state.  With the current and expected cuts in Medicaid and PEIA, it would be difficult for Staats Pharmacy to continue to serve as a training site if his funding from RHEP was lowered in any manner.

Chuck applauds John’s commitment to the community and to the RHEP program.  Staat’s Pharmacy has hired 2 prior RHEP students and hopes to hire a third in the future.  He also provides the consortium with use of his vehicles for community service projects.

Hilda discussed the fact that the schools receive funds from RHEP under the Primary Care Support line and the schools use these funds to release faculty to train field faculty.

Dr. Lewis stated that we are now facing a change in the fact that all rotations are not equal.  The program needs to take a look at the RHEP model.  The private Pharmacy Ambulatory Care Rotation described by John is different from those at CAMC and WVU.  Those at the health care centers are subsidized while Staats is absorbing the costs for the rotation from its business.  This is a curriculum change from the early days and there needs to be some discussion about it.  Curriculum changes that impact RHEP will need to be discussed and addressed.  Dr. Lewis also stated that the funding stream should change as the model changes.  Funding set 10 years ago may not be adequate to fund the program as it is now.

The subcommittee wants to review the criteria from the School of Pharmacy for the Ambulatory Care rotation.  Dr. Lewis and Hilda are to charge the School Committee to look at all rotations.  They will need to look at the curriculum, the costs, how it is subsidized and the location of the rotation.  It was mentioned that AHEC has graduate level funding and that this may be another possible solution.

II. The committee then received material from Malinda Turner and Bob Harman that were prepared
With Anna Reno from Little Kanawha Consortium.  The material shows how Eastern WVRHEC’s model would affect preceptor payments at the Little Kanawha Consortium.  Eastern pays only for IDS and not for precepting students.  They also pay an honorarium as long as funding is available in the consortium.  The handouts are attached.

Anna believes she will lose field faculty under the Eastern WVRHEC model.  The board made cuts to preceptor payments in the 1995 reorganization and no field faculty quit.  Anna must hold IDS in Ritchie County due to the 1 hour travel restriction placed on students.  Her physicians won’t travel to a central location to conduct IDS.  The model shown on the handouts would have higher numbers with more faculty resources and more students if she could conduct IDS in multiple locations throughout her site.  It was discussed that MDTV may provide a possible solution for IDS sessions using a University professor to conduct.

Chuck’s model is a blend of many payment strategies.  Under Kellogg there were 4 faculty each at .5 FTE.  They were paid salary and benefits.  In the 1995 reorganization, Winding Roads decreased the $65,000 paid to Medicine faculty to $48,000.  The difference was then used for other precepting services.  Winding Roads pays IDS, and an honorarium of $1,000 per year to preceptors but not to field professor.  They also pay $1,000 per Dental Student and $500 per Dental Hygiene student.  This amount was determined when student numbers from the School of Dentistry dropped.  Changes will occur in Nursing for the same reason.  Funding changes will continue and his Lead Agency or field faculty will not drop out.

The committee agreed to ask that all consortium apply the Eastern WVRHEC model to their consortium and tell us how the model would work for them.  They also need to tell the committee how they might modify the model to make it more workable for their specific consortium.  Hilda will charge the Site Coordinators to complete this by December 21, 2001.

A smaller group of the subcommittee will gather in Morgantown on January 15, 2002 to discuss the findings and develop a model based on the responses.

III. The committee then reviewed the information gathered from the field faculty and lead agency survey of paid field faculty.  The survey shows that the majority of field faculty would stay with the program regardless of the payment amount.  The materials developed from this survey will be posted on the web and are also attached to the minutes.