Pharmacy professor helps make policies safeguarding health 

By Betsy Friauf

Annesha White, PhD

 

Annesha White, PhD, is passionate about improving health care and reducing its cost.

She’s Assistant Dean and Assistant Professor of Pharmacotherapy in the UNT System College of Pharmacy. Her research focus is on reducing the medication errors that harm about 1.5 million Americans annually.

Dr. White’s expertise and hard work in this arena have earned her a position as a Foundation Trustee of the Academy of Managed Care-Pharmacy (AMCP).

She has an intense interest in the current epidemic of opioid abuse and overdoses. One avenue of her work involves better ways to help opioid users taper off.

Dr. White helped present an education session for health care providers at the recent National Rx Drug Abuse & Heroin Summit in Atlanta, where President Barack Obama was the keynote speaker. Also at that conference, she had discussions with the Centers for Disease Control group that recently published new guidelines on use of opioids for chronic pain.

“One pillar of the Health Science Center’s Patient Safety Institute will be prescription management,” she said. “We will be working intensely on solutions such as more precise medication, coordination of drugs from multiple providers,  and what is called ‘polypharmacy,’ or a patient’s use of four or more medications that may interact poorly.”

Her new role with the AMCP allows her to enrich students’ education, as well.  “We’ve already begun a student chapter of AMCP,” she said. “We will have a speaker every month, and we are creating new internships and rotations.”

Two College of Pharmacy students have secured an advanced pharmacy practice experience with OmniSys, a nationally recognized leader in medical claim billing and Medicare compliance for pharmacies, with a focus on health information and technology.

Although she hasn’t yet finished her first year at UNTHSC, Dr. White is enthusiastic about the organization’s future. “There’s a great interprofessional collaboration here,” she said.

Recent News

Abe Clark
  • Research
|Mar 28, 2024

Dr. Abe Clark honored with international research award

Abbot “Abe” Clark, PhD, FARVO, FAAO, regents professor of pharmacology and neuroscience in the School of Biomedical Sciences at The University of North Texas Health Science Center at Fort Worth, has received the International Society for Eye Research 2024 Ernst H. Bárány Prize.   The awar...
Processed With Lensa With Pt12 Filter
  • Research
|Mar 28, 2024

Dr. Steven Romero receives American Physiological Society award for excellence in research

Dr. Steven Romero, associate professor of Physiology and Anatomy at the School of Biomedical Sciences at The University of North Texas Health Science Center at Fort Worth, was named the 2024 Henry Pickering Bowditch Award Lecturer by the American Physiological Society. The lectureship is awarded to ...
Screenshot 2024 03 28 At 8.50.12 am
  • Our People
|Mar 28, 2024

Physical therapy student lands prestigious role in national organization

When Jonathan Hansen was an undergraduate intern at Texas Health Arlington Memorial Hospital, he encountered a man who had just suffered a stroke. The patient’s right side was completely paralyzed. Hansen, now a first-year student in The University of North Texas Health Science Center at Fort Wort...
Jackie In Dc
  • Our People
|Mar 27, 2024

Personalized Health and Well-Being student repays generosity through advocacy

In 2019, The University of North Texas Health Science Center at Fort Worth student Jacqueline Green said she felt hopeless. She became pregnant while experiencing hard financial times, and she didn’t have insurance. Compounding her stress was terrible grief. Her mother-in-law suddenly passed away,...