Students Build Medication Use Quality Knowledge this Summer

PQA provides healthcare quality experience to students from a wide variety of disciplines. This summer, we are hosting five students through our internship and MPH practicum programs. They are adding medication safety, adherence and appropriate use experience to their professional training. We recently invited them to answer five questions about the work they are doing, where they're going in their careers and how they hope to apply their PQA knowledge to their professional advancement.

Kennadie Anderson
School: University of Minnesota College of Pharmacy
Major/Degree Program: Doctor of Pharmacy
Anticipated Year of Graduation: 2024

What drew you to PQA and our work to improve medication use safety, adherence, and appropriate use?
I’m drawn to the work of PQA because I believe it is essential for pharmacist-provided care to be value-based. Measure development resources allow pharmacists to work at the top of their profession, increasing their ability to offer patient-centered care.

What are your goals for your time at PQA?
My goals are to learn more about the social determinants of health (SDOH) that influence communities and the impact association management can have on increasing quality of care.

Where would you like to see yourself in five years?
I would like to be at a non-profit pharmacy association in Washington D.C., working to provide resources that increase patient access to care. 

What do you hope to learn this summer at PQA to take back with you to school this fall?
I would like to take new perspectives back to school this fall. I hope this experience gives me a new lens to analyze problems and seek solutions in ways that are collaborative, innovative, and centered on health care quality. 

Tell us something interesting about yourself that’s not work related.
My favorite place to be is the Minneapolis Institute of Art.


Nyla Lindo
School: Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health
Major/Degree Program: Master’s of Public Health Sociomedical Sciences Department
Anticipated Year of Graduation: 2022

What drew you to PQA and our work to improve medication use safety, adherence, and appropriate use?
My knowledge about the pharmaceutical sector was very limited, and PQA provided me the opportunity to study medication adherence, an issue that I have seen during my time as a clinical research assistant. PQA also provided me with the insight on how these issues can be combatted by facilitating interactions between patients and other key stakeholders to address SDOH barriers.

What are your goals for your time at PQA?
I would love to network with individuals with diverse background and observe how they incorporate their diverse backgrounds into formulating effective strategies to address medication adherence and safety. I would also like to learn more about qualitative research strategies and strengthen my statistics knowledge.

Where would you like to see yourself in five years?
I would like to be in medical school to pursue my career goal of becoming a doctor. I have a strong interest in maternal health and plan to use the lessons learned from my time here at PQA to incorporate multiple stakeholder perspectives in coming up with holistic treatment plans for patients.

What do you hope to learn this summer at PQA to take back with you to school this fall?
I hope to strengthen my knowledge of quality assurance programs and learn about the pharmaceutical sector in health care. I also hope to learn about the many different facets that go into planning convening events and drafting of resource guides that will be made available to the public. Medication adherence is not a topic covered during my undergraduate studies or in my graduate studies, so I am excited to learn about effective methods to increase adherence and incorporate the patient perspective in drafting treatment plans.

Tell us something interesting about yourself that’s not work related.
I was always very interested in fitness. I have been an athlete my entire life and competed in varsity level sports in college. This is my first year not participating in competitive sports and it has provided me the time to pursue other passions, such as learning Japanese, brushing up on my French, and taking up kickboxing to help stay active.


Chyann Mealy
School: Virginia Commonwealth University
Major/Degree Program: Master of Public Health, Epidemiology concentration
Anticipated Year of Graduation: December 2021

What drew you to PQA and our work to improve medication use safety, adherence, and appropriate use? 
I've heard about so many areas in public health: research, policy, behavior change, SDOH and health care. PQA's MPH practicum program provided me the opportunity to learn about the intersection of all these areas and its impact on medication use safety, adherence, and appropriate use. I also saw the MPH practicum with PQA as an opportunity to learn new things, specifically how pharmacies play a role in improving population health. 

What are your goals for your time at PQA? ​
To build upon the foundational research skills I gained in graduate school and to increase confidence in my problem-solving abilities and data analytic skills through helping with various research projects.  

Where would you like to see yourself in five years? 
I see myself working for the federal government or a major research organization in a role where I am improving health outcomes for underserved populations through research or health equity practice. 

What do you hope to learn this summer at PQA to take back with you to school this fall?
I hope to gain proficiency in R (a programming language and free software environment for statistical computing and graphics) so that I can use this software on future research projects in addition to my skills in SAS statistical software. 

Tell us something interesting about yourself that’s not work related
I studied abroad in Ghana back in 2017 where I was first introduced to the world of public health and the impacts of medication access and use on health outcomes in underserved populations. 


Neo (Hsuan-Yun) Su
School: University at Buffalo School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Science
Major/Degree Program: PharmD/MPH
Anticipated Year of Graduation: Class of 2023

What drew you to PQA and our work to improve medication use safety, adherence, and appropriate use? 
I think medication use in general is one of the most essential aspects of the role of pharmacists in the health system. Improving medication use safety, adherence, and appropriate use could really improve patient-centered-care outcomes and allow the efficient use of medical resources, which is one of my career goals as a pharmacist, public health professional, and health care worker. Measures regarding medication use and health systems are crucial in health care quality improvement, and the measure development and performance measurement aspects are very intriguing to me and therefore drew me to apply for PQA’s summer internship to learn more about this unique aspect of not just measures but also the health care system. 

What are your goals for your time at PQA? ​
The most important information and takeaway from the short summer internship working with wonderful and knowledgeful panels and team members will be how different gap closing ideas were developed from current measures and policies, how the continuous brainstorming of measure revision are conducted, and how outcome for measures are assessed. Therefore, my major goals for my three months at PQA are learning the thought process from different experts and team members regarding measure gap closing and specification revision as well as familiarizing myself with the behind the scenes work for the health care system.

Where would you like to see yourself in five years? 
I see myself working for a health care quality improvement organization or an outcome research branch in a pharmaceutical company, dedicating myself in improving health care from a population perspective with measure development and/or health economics outcome research.

What do you hope to learn this summer at PQA to take back with you to school this fall?
The biggest takeaway from the summer internship that I hope to take back with me to school this fall would be the behind the scenes and population perspective of pharmacy and health care quality improvement on top of clinical and community to broaden my knowledge base towards improving the health care system.

Tell us something interesting about yourself that’s not work related
I used to breakdance for three years and I love taking road trips during break with my family.


Sety Abooali
School: University of Virginia
Major/Degree Program: B.A. in Foreign Affairs
Anticipated Year of Graduation: May 2022

What drew you to PQA and our work to improve medication use safety, adherence and appropriate use? 
After working as a pharmacy technician, I saw the importance of medication safety, adherence, and appropriate use and wanted to step away from the clinical side of pharmacies into the more behind-the-scenes side which ensures that quality care is being provided. Also, I aim to become a health care lawyer or work with health policy, so my overall interests lie in bettering our health care system. My experience in pharmacy combined with my career goals drew me towards PQA and their work.

What are your goals for your time at PQA? 
Through taking part in PQA’s projects, my goal is to gain insight on how measure development and research impacts the quality of health care. This points to my larger, overall goal of gaining a better understanding of the complexities within the U.S. health care system and the ways in which organizations and individuals can improve health care quality.

Where would you like to see yourself in five years? 
I see myself working in the public health sector or practicing as a health care lawyer. Either way, I hope to be achieving my goal of doing work that makes the U.S. health care system more affordable, equitable, and quality-driven. 

What do you hope to learn this summer at PQA to take back with you to school this fall?
As I return to school, both for this fall and my future years, which will be more tailored towards public health, I look forward to having a better grasp on what happens behind the scenes in health care. This summer at PQA will show me how research and measure development impact the kind of care Americans receive, and this knowledge will be beneficial and insightful to me as I move towards a career in Public Health.

Tell us something interesting about yourself that’s not work related
I grew up practicing Japanese Shotokan Karate and competed on Team USA until I was nineteen. Now, I’m very into weightlifting!

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