FAQs

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the Medication Adherence Team Challenge?

The Medication Adherence Team Challenge is a 3-month-long community outreach campaign that runs annually from January through March. The Challenge invites faculty and students from schools of pharmacy and other healthcare professions to raise awareness about medication adherence as a critical public health issue by implementing creative solutions and outreach initiatives within their communities. At the end of the Challenge, top performing Teams will be recognized nationally for their efforts to improve medication adherence.

Why promote a whole campaign about medication adherence?

Script Your Future is a national campaign led by the National Consumers League (NCL) to raise awareness about the importance of medication adherence as a vital first step toward addressing health disparities in minority and medically underserved communities. Studies show that nearly half of medications for chronic disease are not taken as prescribed. Racial and ethnic minorities suffer disproportionately from chronic disease and poor medication adherence. Medication non-adherence contributes to approximately 125,000 deaths and 10% of hospitalizations a year. The financial burden of non-adherence can range from $100 billion to $290 billion in health care costs every year. Many factors contribute to non-adherence, such as financial barriers and lack of access to medical care. Understanding how the social determinants of health impact medication adherence can inform more effective interventions to help reduce disparities in adherence and health outcomes.

Why focus on students at schools of pharmacy and other health professions?

One of the best hopes we have for combatting non-adherence is to train the next generation of health care professionals to address the social determinants of health when engaging their patients. This starts in the classroom through the innovation brought forward by health professions faculty. Since 2011, the Script Your Future Team Challenge has demonstrated the power of inter-professional health care teams to engage patients and caregivers in their communities to improve health through better medication adherence. Pharmacists, doctors, nurses, nurse practitioners, pharmacy technicians, and all other health professionals have a unique perspective on medication adherence. To move the needle on medication adherence, each member of the health care team needs to understand how health disparities impact minority and medically underserved communities.

About the Script Your Future Team Challenge

How can my school join the Script Your Future Team Challenge?

  • Establish a All teams must include the following: One School/College of Pharmacy and an optional additional Health Profession School (i.e., Medical, Nursing, Public Health, etc.). Teams are strongly encouraged to partner with and include other entities in their activities – for example, another health professions school, community organization, or health department. A School/College of Pharmacy may have multiple Teams participating in the Challenge.
  • Appoint a Team Point of The Team Point of Contact must be a Dean or an appointed Faculty Advisor from the School/College of Pharmacy entering the Challenge. This Point of Contact will serve as the primary contact with Challenge organizers. Teams also must designate a Student Representative to serve as the student contact for the Challenge.
  • Submit a Letter of Intent. To participate, the Team Point of Contact must submit a Letter of Intent via email to syf@nclnet.org, or directly to Sam Sears at samanthas@nclnet.org. Letters of Intent should be submitted by December 31, 2024.

The Letter of Intent must include the following:

  •  The name of the school/college of pharmacy participating in the Team Challenge
  • The name any additional health profession school(s) participating in the Challenge
  • Name, email address, and phone number for the Challenge Team Faculty Point of Contact
  • Name, email address, and phone number for the Challenge Team Student Point of Contact

Why do we have to submit a Letter of Intent?

The Letter of Intent helps the Challenge organizers plan and make the Challenge a success. The letter can be an email and does not have to include any formal details or plans – simply indicate that your school plans to participate in the Challenge and provide the information noted above. Teams that do not submit a Letter of Intent will not be eligible for awards.

What is the Team Challenge Report?

The Team Challenge Report is a report of five pages or less describing the school/college’s activities to raise awareness of medication adherence. Reports should include the following information:

  • Program Intervention: a description of the program interventions conducted by students
  • Outcomes Measured: event(s) type, date, and population targeted; number of volunteers, volunteer hours, materials disseminated, and participants reached
  • Team Impact: description of how the activities conducted changed health outcomes/impacted the target population
  • Appendices (does not count toward page limit): may include, but are not limited to:
    • Event/activity log keeping track of outcomes
    • Press coverage, pictures, other documentation from event
    • Social media materials used
    • Letters of recommendation or personal narratives from participants
    • Educational videos

When is the report due and how do I submit it?

The report should be submitted via email to samanthas@nclnet.org and syf@nclnet.org. Reports are due by 11:59pm ET on April 15, 2025.

Team Challenge Activities

What are the requirements for Team Challenge activities?

Activities should be conducted anytime during the three-month Challenge period, from January 1, 2025, through March 31, 2025, and should focus on medication adherence. Patients and consumers cannot adhere to what they cannot access. Given the complex array of barriers to access and challenges to adherence, your team might want to think about activities focusing on the following topics: vaccine confidence, misinformation, over-the-counter safety, online pharmacy purchases, self-harm and stigma. Schools and colleges are encouraged to partner with other schools of health professions, patient care clinics, pharmacy practice settings, community organizations, consumer advocacy groups, and other associated representatives to implement their activities.

Why is the Challenge being held from January-March?

The Team Challenge is held from January-March to provide flexibility for teams to plan and schedule their activities. It is up to you when you would like to hold your events, as long as they occur within those three months. Some things you can do in advance include designing area-specific flyers or signs, reaching out to potential partners to discuss opportunities in the community, scheduling presentations in the community, or inviting guests to your campus to learn more about medication adherence.

What kind of projects can schools implement during the Adherence Team Challenge?

Be creative in your outreach! We encourage schools and students to identify needs in their communities and develop outreach programs to meet those needs. You may create your own program ideas or partner with existing community resources. Opportunities for outreach may include; sending Team Challenge representatives to speak at community health-related events, distributing campaign materials at a neighborhood pharmacy, conducting medication assessments with patients at a health fair, or launching a campaign strategy to raise awareness about medication adherence through media outreach, letters to the editor, videos, or letters/meetings with local legislators. Feel free to contact churches and places of worship, as well as community organizations with reach into minority and medically underserved communities to explore partnerships.

Should schools select one theme or project, or can we do multiple projects simultaneously? Schools and their teams are encouraged to create partnerships for outreach in their communities and leverage existing resources to increase the effectiveness of activities. Teams may conduct multiple projects to increase their reach, but a single well-executed theme or project can be equally as successful. Each Team will be judged only on the activities listed in the final report submitted in April, so if your team does multiple projects, please make sure they are all reported together with the same level of detail.

What kind of measured objectives are you expecting us to provide?

Any measure that demonstrates an activity’s impact or reach is important to include in your final award report. Data points of particular interest to us include the number of volunteer hours your team contributed to the Challenge, the number of patients reached, what type of patients are reached, and

stories of the impact of activities on patients’ awareness and health outcomes.

Can individuals or organizations that are NOT schools of pharmacy join the Medication Adherence Team Challenge?

Organizations, other schools, and other volunteers may only join the Team Challenge through a team that includes a college/school of pharmacy and another health profession school. Individual students, student groups and other organizations are not eligible to receive campaign materials or awards for outreach without working with an identified Team Point of Contact for the Team Challenge. We encourage all groups interested in the Challenge to pursue partnership with their local school/college of

pharmacy or other health professions school Team Point of Contact. If you are interested in being connected with the Teams participating from your area, please contact Sam Sears at samanthas@nclnet.org.

Can other health professions schools participate in the Team Challenge outreach activities?

Yes! The Challenge encourages creating a diverse team of health professions students to conduct outreach activities. Extra points will be given for meaningful engagement with an additional entity – another health professions school, community organization, or other entity. We encourage you to be creative!

Can faculty and staff participate in school outreach activities?

Yes. Faculty and staff should champion the Team Challenge throughout their interactions with community partners, experiential education sites, student organizations, and others. The final Report should come from the Point of Contact faculty member or Dean but is expected to be a collaborative effort from all participants and members of the Challenge Team.

Can schools provide financial support for outreach activities?

Yes. Schools and community partners may provide reasonable resources, including financial support, to aid in organizing and implementing outreach activities. If the Challenge Team receives financial or in- kind support for their activities, the final report should outline the source of the support and how the resources were used in the Challenge activities.

My school has more than one campus. Do we need to work together as one Team?

It’s up to you. If you want to have multiple teams from your school, you need to submit a separate Letter of Intent for each Team, conduct the activities separately, and submit separate final Reports. If you’d like to have more than one Team from your school, please contact Sam Sears at samanthas@nclnet.org to discuss further.

Will Script Your Future provide ongoing support to participants in the Team Challenge?
Yes. Script Your Future staff is available to answer any questions you may have throughout the Challenge. In addition, the Script Your Future team can provide printed wallet cards in various languages and other materials upon request.

My school or college is already planning to conduct pharmacy outreach activities during the time period of the Challenge. How should we distinguish Team Challenge activities from our regular activities?

Schools can make their activities unique to the Team Challenge by incorporating Script Your Future materials (electronic or print) in a creative way, and by focusing specifically on adherence in one or all of the challenge categories listed previously.

Judging and Awards

The Letter of Intent must include the following:
• The name of the school/college of pharmacy participating in the Team Challenge
• The name any additional health profession school(s) participating in the Challenge
• Name, email address, and phone number for the Challenge Team Faculty Point of
Contact
• Name, email address, and phone number for the Challenge Team Student Point of
Contact

At the end of the Challenge, a team of volunteer judges will review all of the Team reports, and five Teams will be recognized for their efforts to improve medication adherence. Awardees will be notified on or around May 15, 2025.

The awards are as follows:

  • National Award
  • Media/Communications Award
  • Technology Innovation Award
  • Inter-Professional Award
  • Under-Represented Community Outreach Award

Each of the winning schools or colleges will receive the following:

  • Commemorative certificate
  • Recognition through a press release
  • Spotlight on the Script Your Future website and social media
  • Small financial stipend

How will the projects be judged?

The scoring rubric and other details are available on the Script Your Future website’s Team Challenge Materials page. Projects will be judged on various components including:

  • Creativity and originality of activities
  • Inter-professional team composition and focus
  • Use of Script Your Future campaign materials
  • Impact of Activities/Outcomes measured (volunteer hours, number of patients reached, presentations given and potential audiences reached, traditional and social media outreach, pledge signatures, etc.)

Teams are encouraged to explore evaluation measures for their specific activities. Several previous Challenge Teams compiled analyses for poster sessions and presentations at conferences. For guidance on possible team activities, we encourage you to visit the Script Your Future website and read the press releases announcing previous Challenge winners.

Are small school teams at a disadvantage?

No. We realize that colleges and schools vary in size, and we take this into consideration in the awards selection process. Creativity from the Team and program impact are the most important components in judging projects.

For any additional questions, please email syf@nclnet.org or samanthas@nclnet.org. Good luck!