A Distinguished Group
For more than 20 years, UIC’s Drug Information Group has provided unique value to industry partners and an undeniable boost to the College of Pharmacy
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Mary Lynn Moody and Michael Gabay make quite a productive team.
For the last two decades, the two UIC College of Pharmacy faculty members, both clinical associate professors in the Department of Pharmacy Practice, have guided the College’s Drug Information Group (DIG), shepherding its transformation from a traditional drug information services unit into a pioneering entrepreneurial force working with a diverse array of external partners. Today, the DIG serves as an accessible resource for clinicians, an innovative model for other aspiring academic-based drug information centers and a positive contributor to the College’s operations and its marketplace standing.
“This is a much different business unit than is typically found in a college of pharmacy,” confirms Moody, the DIG’s former director and current director of business development. “With our entrepreneurial approach, we’ve been able to bring new opportunities to the College, boost its profile and bring in revenue all while improving pharmaceutical services. It’s been a win all around.”
Evolution of UIC’s DIG
In its earliest incarnation, the DIG provided basic drug information services ranging from a bimonthly newsletter to answering pharmaceutical-related inquiries from Chicago area providers and patients. In 1997, however, College leadership directed the unit to become a self-supporting entity, a charge that demanded the DIG embrace an entrepreneurial bent.
In its first significant external contract as a fee-for-service business unit, the DIG inked a long-term deal with Ohio-based Cardinal Health to provide drug information services to approximately 450 hospitals in the Cardinal enterprise. That 1998 contract immediately reshaped the upstart unit, compelling Moody, the DIG’s founding director, to add two drug information specialists to its initial staff of three and to expand the group’s operating hours.
“That’s no small transition,” observes Gabay, who followed Moody as DIG director in 2008 after joining the group a decade prior.
Thus began the DIG’s steady ascent. The Cardinal Health deal underscored the unit’s potential to both internal and external stakeholders and launched a multi-faceted evolution that continues bringing the DIG into new corners of the industry.
Over the last 20 years, the DIG’s client list has expanded to include pharmaceutical powerhouses like Takeda and Astellas, healthcare giants such as Baxter and Scripps Health and civic-minded brethren such as the Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services. Its services continue to multiply as well, driven by a mix of client needs, marketplace realities and industry partners eager to leverage the DIG’s vast experience and wide-ranging expertise.
According to Gabay, the DIG’s most substantial business derives from its medical research and writing. These projects include standard response letters, dossiers on drugs, disease-specific treatment algorithms and patient-focused literature demystifying the often-complex language of science. In the last year, for instance, the DIG has updated approximately three-dozen standard response letters for Takeda related to gastrointestinal, diabetes and psychiatric medications.
“Initially, we did very little medication writing, but that piece of our business has grown immensely over the years as we’ve matured and fostered relationships,” Gabay says.
True to its roots, addressing requests from healthcare providers remains the DIG’s second core business. Each month, the group answers about 200 calls from healthcare providers and hospital-based pharmacists about an array of issues from managing tetanus exposure and the effectiveness of flu vaccines to evidence for the use of high-dose intravenous vitamin C for cancer treatment.
“People come to us when they need help getting information to practitioners,” Moody says, citing a client list that still includes Cardinal as well as Vizient and other individual hospitals and healthcare systems scattered around the U.S. “With this service, we’re helping pharmacists become better clinicians with the evidence and research to make better decisions.”
Other DIG services include: formulary reviews; consultative services for pharmacy and therapeutics committees; drug information slide kids; continuing education programs; advisory board guidance; drug information and literature evaluation courses; and training programs for sales representatives and medical science liaisons.
“A number of our clients don’t have a healthcare background or drug information support, so we provide that needed expertise and exposure on the clinical side,” Gabay says.
And there are, Moody says, those unique one-off projects that “come out of the blue.” About three years ago, for instance, Healthline, a San Francisco-based provider of health information, contracted the DIG to pen drug content for its site, the DIG’s first relationship with a healthcare startup.
“Many of our partners look to us for leadership in drug information and they appreciate that we function as an objective, balanced source that relies on the totality of evidence and research,” Moody says.
Continuing its charge
The DIG’s internal talents, diverse experiences and proven quality continue to attract clients such as Postgraduate Healthcare Education (PHE), one of the nation’s foremost pharmacy education providers and the firm behind the well-known Power-Pak educational platform. PHE began working with UIC’s DIG about eight years ago and the New Jersey-based firm has leaned on the DIG to pen needs assessments as well as some programs that appear on Power-Pak, including its popular Medication Therapy Management certificate program.
Gary Gyss, PHE’s executive vice president of educational programs, says the DIG has contributed to PHE steady annual growth over the past eight years, adding that a number of DIG-produced needs assessments have turned into fully funded grants for PHE.
“They have deep clinical insight and a thorough understanding of what information pharmacists need to practice effectively,” Gyss says of the DIG. “It’s hard to find a partner with this range of expertise and that’s been a strong partnership for us as a company.”
Together, Gabay and Moody continue driving the DIG’s rise, a united front ushering the unit into a third decade of operations. While Moody seeks and secures new marketplace opportunities, Gabay operationalizes and completes projects, the Mr. Inside to Moody’s role as Ms. Outside. That collaborative action combined with the DIG’s ability to deliver for its clients has fueled its growth. Once a staff of three full-time pharmacists, the DIG now consists of 11 drug information specialists as well as support staff in IT and finance.
The DIG’s steady progress has also enabled the group to consistently support the College’s students and its operations. PGY1 residents regularly cycle through the DIG, while the College has used DIG revenue to acquire much-needed resources to support the College’s research and teaching objectives.
In the marketplace, meanwhile, the DIG has cemented its reputation as a leader in the drug information field. Both Gabay and Moody have advised other academic-based drug information centers looking to adopt the groundbreaking approach UIC has employed for more than two decades, while DIG staff continue crafting innovative new ways to bring drug information to the public and practitioners. To that end, the DIG recently developed an online formulary certificate program with the University of Wisconsin, an effort to improve practitioners’ ability to evaluate medical literature and make decisions based on research. The group also recently unveiled plans to host a consensus conference this November on the safety of intravenous drug delivery systems.
“We’ve worked hard to be at the tip of the spear when it comes to adding new information to the field and moving practice forward,” Moody says. “We have built professional relationships that have opened up different opportunities through the years and we want to keep that momentum going.”