Making Prescription Medication Labels
Easier to Understand
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Join the growing list of pharmacies in this project!
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More Wisconsin pharmacies have joined Wisconsin Health Literacy (WHL) and the Medical College of Wisconsin (MCW) to redesign prescription labels so they are easier for patients to read and understand.
If you are interested in
improving patient adherence, as well as in having more satisfied patients and in receiving fewer callbacks
, then your pharmacy should join this project too! With support and guidance from WHL and using United States Pharmacopeia (USP) standards, you can also have labels that are patient-centered.
The following pharmacies already have joined this project to redesign their prescription labels:
- altScripts Specialty Pharmacy
- Aurora Pharmacy
- Ballweg Family Pharmacy
- Evergreen Pharmacy
- Fitchburg Family Pharmacy
- Forward Pharmacy
- Froedtert Pharmacy
- GHC-SCW Pharmacy
- Gundersen Health System Pharmacy
- Hayat Pharmacy
- Hometown Pharmacy
- House of Wellness Pharmacy
- Sheboygan Health Mart Pharmacy
- The Medicine Shoppe
- UW Health Pharmacy Services
If you would like to share project information with your staff or with other pharmacies, please download the
PDF Pharmacy Project flyer
.
Read more about the prescription label project in the following publications:
Funding is provided by the Advancing a Healthier Wisconsin endowment of the Medical College of Wisconsin
.
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Project recognized as a Pearl after presenting at a national conference
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Drs. Paul Smith and Kenneth Schellhase (project member and academic partner of this project, respectively) presented a session entitled, "United States Pharmacopeia Patient-Centered Label Standards and Medication Adherence" this past November at the
North American Primary Care Research Group (NAPCRG)
in
Chicago, IL.
The abstract was selected as one of the committee’s top 3 (out of approximately 1300) submitted. Subsequently, the presentation was selected for a
2018 NAPCRG Pearl Award
. The Pearls are chosen each year by the Community Clinician Advisory Group (CCAG) as the top research studies presented at the Annual Meeting that will impact clinical practice. Members of the CCAG will present the Pearls at local, regional, and national venues.
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Other national presentations this past fall include:
Health Literacy Annual Research Conference (HARC), Bethesda, MD,
(October 2018) David Mott, professor at the UW School of Pharmacy (featured in picture), Dr. Joanne Schwartzberg, and Steve Sparks of Wisconsin Health Literacy presented a panel session entitled: "Improving Prescription Medication Labels to Help Patient Understanding and Adherence through Implementation of USP Standards for Patient-Centered Care."
American Public Health Association (APHA) Annual Meeting & Expo, San Diego, CA
(November 2018) Steve Sparks of Wisconsin Health Literacy, presented a breakout session entitled, "Adopting a Patient-Centered Prescription Medication Label to Improve Adherence."
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Directions for Use - A Sig Improvement Initiative
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The directions for use on a prescription label, or the "sig," is crucial information for patient understanding. With the expansion of this project, Wisconsin Health Literacy (WHL) created a Sig Improvement Task Force (SITF), consisting of key stakeholders with representatives from Epic Systems, Pharmacy Society of Wisconsin, and the Medical College of Wisconsin, as well as providers, pharmacists and pharmacy techs.
After meetings this fall, the SITF plans to work with a health system pharmacy and a community pharmacy to pilot two initiatives to help improve and test sigs. One will focus on improving sigs from the provider side and the other from the pharmacy side. More details to follow after implementation of the respective pilots.
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Wisconsin Health Literacy Transitions
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Wisconsin Health Literacy says farewell to Steve Sparks. Steve began work over 5 years ago as the Health Literacy Director and his impact has been nothing short of incredible. The growth that Wisconsin Health Literacy has experienced under his leadership has put us on the national map of excellence in the field and boosted the overall name recognition of Wisconsin Literacy, Inc. (Wisconsin Health Literacy is a division of Wisconsin Literacy, Inc.)
Steve approached a large body of work with enthusiasm, good humor and resourcefulness, which matter a lot in the non-profit world. He will be missed by many who had the privilege to work with him.
We especially thank him for his leadership and vision with this project and wish him well on his future adventures!
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Wisconsin Health Literacy welcomes the new Health Literacy Director, Stan Hudson, MA, who has been the Associate Director of the Center for Health Policy, University of Missouri since 2009. Prior to that he held positions as a Program Associate, Project Director, and Senior Health Policy Analyst all at the UM Center for Health Policy. He also worked for the University’s School of Medicine, Department of Health Management and Informatics as a Research Assistant and before that a Legislative Assistant in the MO State Capitol.
Stan is well known nationally in the Health Literacy field for his work toward creating health literacy standards in schools of medicine and for professional certificates for those working in the field. He was recently selected by the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine to deliver a paper for a Health Literacy Roundtable Workshop on Making the Business Case for Health Literacy. He also taught Social Justice in Health courses at UM and has done training in Racial Justice at the university and in school districts. He is a Certified Diversity FaciliTrainer (CDFT).
We look forward to working with Stan on this project and are excited to have his leadership as we continue to grow the Wisconsin Health Literacy division.
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A final new development at Wisconsin Health Literacy (WHL) is that Kari LaScala, Project Manager for our Medication Label Project, will transition to Associate Director of Wisconsin Health Literacy.
Kari has been responsible for much of the health literacy workshops WHL implements in the community and is also working on training more health care providers. She will continue to manage this project.
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Wisconsin Health Literacy | (608) 257-1655 | www.wisconsinhealthliteracy.org
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