PCA
Program Description
The Pharmacy Care Administration (PCA) graduate program of the Department of Clinical & Administrative Pharmacy is designed as an interdisciplinary program leading to the Ph.D. degree.
The increasing complexity of drug utilization in the United States and throughout the world creates complex problems in pharmaceutical care delivery. Practitioners and researchers need to understand and investigate how changes in the health care system will affect the structure, process and outcomes of pharmaceutical care.
Also, society has been increasingly called upon to maximize health outcomes subject to some type of budget constraint and the need to identify and select efficient health inputs is paramount. Changes in products (goods and services), access to care, freedom of choice, reimbursement policy, direct to consumer advertising, third party considerations and government regulation, are a few examples of the issues which will impact on the delivery of pharmaceutical care.
These issues will require researchers skilled in a broad spectrum of disciplines including, but not limited to, economics, administration, finance, marketing, epidemiology, and psychology.
The objective of the graduate program in Pharmacy Care Administration is to educate the student to perform meaningful independent research and to develop scholarly characteristics preparing them for professional careers in academia, research, government, institutional pharmacy, and industry. Having accomplished the academic and research requirements, career opportunities may be found with universities, industry, pharmaceutical associations, local, state and national health agencies, health care delivery organizations, managed care organizations, pharmaceutical industry, state boards of pharmacy, and medical media organizations.
PCA Manual (pdf)