Wyoming Innovative Pharmacy Practice Award

Kem Krueger is shown with presenter, Whitney Buckley.

(reprinted with permission from the Wyoming Pharmacy Association)

During the Wyoming Pharmacy Association 92nd Annual Convention, Kem Krueger, Pharm.D., Ph.D. was recognized as the Innovative Pharmacist of the Year. While many of us think of pharmacy practice as the more traditional role of dispensing medications and/or interacting with patients and other health care providers as a clinical service, we believe that Dr. Krueger has opened our eyes to a different area of pharmacy practice. He is teaching many of the young pharmacists in this state to look at the bigger picture of pharmacy through economics, ethics, law and outcome measures, and to be proactive in preserving our profession. He is also educating many of the currently practicing pharmacists in our state about the impact of economics and health care policy on our profession, both locally and nationally.
 

Prior to becoming faculty at the University of Wyoming School of Pharmacy 2005, Dr. Krueger was faculty at Auburn University for 7 years. He currently teaches pharmacy courses in law, ethics, and health policy. He received the Teacher of the Year Award by the Pharmacy Students at the 2009 Annual Awards banquet. He also serves as a co-advisor to the APhA-ASP chapter at UW and created an elective to help students in NCPA become more competitive in the national business plan competition. In 2007, he was awarded the College of Health Sciences Interprofessional Award. He was also honored by the International Society for Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Research (ISPOR) with an award as a 12th Annual International Meeting Poster Finalist.
 

Dr. Krueger has spent 8 years conducting pharmacoeconomic and outcomes research, with a focus on measuring the clinical and economic impact of pharmacy services, modeling disease interventions, and validating disease state models. His most current research has impacted many people involved in health care in Wyoming, including patients, pharmacists, health care professionals, and policy makers. The titles of some of this research include: "A Feasibility Study for a New WY Rural Interdisciplinary Practice Model", "A Multidisciplinary Approach to Teaching Ethics Across the Pharmacy Curriculum", "Outcomes of patient centered clinical prevention service with Medicaid recipients", and "Investigating the Relationship Between Health Literacy and Adherence to Medication Regimens", just to name a few.
 

He presented some of this research at the WPhA Annual Meeting in 2007, entitled "Future of Pharmacy in Wyoming: Are Wyoming Communities at Risk, Will Students Fill the Void?" This research was extremely proactive in identifying the gaps that Wyoming will experience in pharmacy related services over the next 5 years. He has been awarded grants to identify possible solutions to this problem, including more interdisciplinary work between a variety of health care professionals.

Dr. Krueger is an extremely valuable resource in our state and our profession. He has not only helped to identify future problems for Wyoming residents with regard to access to pharmacy services, he is actively looking for solutions to this problem. While this is no small feat, he has also managed to educate many people along the way, including students, pharmacists, health care professionals, and policy makers. By involving all of the above mentioned people, he has also ignited a desire to protect the services our state has to offer and improve them.
 

Posted on Tuesday, August 25, 2009