Health care professionals, faculty, and students work together along with community members to provide drug and health information and screening services.
In 2002, The School of Pharmacy established IPHARM. This Program originated as a one-year, federally funded demonstration project to expand UM's existing campus-based Drug Information Service (DIS) and to create a mobile pharmaceutical care clinic in north central Montana. IPHARM's mission was to improve the access for disadvantaged rural health practitioners to drug and health information and screening services.
In 2007, IPHARM became the clinical training initiative in geriatric health screening for the Montana Geriatric Education Center (MTGEC), a federally funded project. MTGEC's financial support has allowed IPHARM to continue to provide wellness testing for people throughout Montana.
IPHARM provides the following screenings and counseling:
-Bone Density
-Blood Pressure
-Cholesterol
-Hemoglobin A1c
-Balance Testing/Fall Risk assessment
-Memory and Depression screening
Health care professionals, faculty, and students work together along with community members to provide IPHARM services at a nominal fee to participants. Additionally, the program provides a valuable teaching tool for fourth year pharmacy students as well as nursing, physical therapy, and social work students. This setting provides students with hands on training working directly with patients in real-life professional environments.
IPHARM has logged over 130,000 miles and ranged as far north as Yaak, as far east as Plentywood, as far west as Troy, as far south as Red Lodge, as well as many places in between such as Great Falls, Big Timber, Boulder, Lincoln, Glasgow, and Ennis. Events have been hosted in a variety of settings including community health centers, senior centers, community pharmacies, health departments, and community health fairs. As of July 2016, IPHARM has completed over 617 events and screened over 17,000 Montana residents.
-Provide wellness screening to those unable, for any reason, to access such testing
-Develop a sustainable wellness-testing program for Montana's rural and frontier counties to be community run and managed.
-Train pharmacy, nursing, social work, and physical therapy students in the operation of the wellness screening program and the patient counseling techniques.
