Partner for Promotion one of Ohio State’s 2025 Programs of Excellence in Engaged Scholarship

For 20 years, The Ohio State University College of Pharmacy's Partner for Promotion program has advanced quality patient care by empowering current and future pharmacists to establish sustainable pharmacy services together. This year, the program was selected as one of Ohio State’s Programs of Excellence in Engaged Scholarship.

The recognition is administered by the university’s Office of Outreach and Engagement to certify projects across the university that demonstrate excellence in high-impact, community-engaged scholarship. The 19 honorees will be celebrated at a luncheon on April 30.

Partner for Promotion was established in 2005 to help community-based pharmacies meet the growing needs of their patients. 

“The idea was that Partner for Promotion would teach students and pharmacists how to advance pharmacy practice and create new services in the process,” said Jennifer Rodis, PharmD, FAPhA, associate dean for outreach and engagement at the College of Pharmacy and director of Partner for Promotion. “This would not only expand the role of pharmacists but also allow students on experiential rotation to play a part in developing these new services – and come to expect this as a part of community pharmacy practice.”

By the time she entered academia, Dr. Rodis had spent several years in residency training and pharmacy practice establishing new services to keep up with the ever-changing role of the pharmacist in health care. When she started working with Ohio State College of Pharmacy students and preceptors, she saw an opportunity to integrate new service development into the PharmD curriculum.

“As I talked to students about ways we could keep up with changes in community practice, they would respond, ‘That sounds exciting, but I don’t see it in my internship or rotations sites,’” Dr. Rodis said. “Pharmacists would tell me, ‘This sounds great, but I do not have time to create anything like this in my day-to-day.” 

Dr. Rodis collaborated early on with Julie Legg, PharmD, FNAP, assistant dean of experiential education, and Kristin Casper, PharmD, chair of the Division of Pharmacy Education and Innovation, to create a longitudinal rotation that trained students and preceptors on how to work together to develop and implement new pharmacy services such as wellness screenings, immunizations, Comprehensive Medication Reviews (CMRs) and more. 

At the time, Dr. Rodis said she did not intend to expand Partner for Promotion beyond Ohio State. But when she gave a presentation about the program at a national meeting in 2008, a faculty member from the University of Utah asked if she could adopt the program for a community residency. “Since then, I’ve been able to share the program with faculty and colleges across the state of Ohio and around the country to help expand service development and student and pharmacist training in ways I never imagined,” she said. 

As Partner for Promotion has grown to eight other pharmacy programs in six other states, it has also grown its curriculum to address changes to pharmacy business models.

In recent years, many states–including Ohio–have passed legislation that formally recognizes pharmacists as health care providers, allowing them to bill insurers for a growing list of health care services they offer their patients. In response, Partner for Promotion began training students and preceptors on how to establish billing practices to keep up with these new reimbursement models. 

“Partner for Promotion exists to help our students and partners in the community close the gap between opportunity and implementation,” Dr. Rodis said. “I am hopeful the program can continue to support the evolution of the profession until we get to a point when maybe we do not need it anymore.”