Community Impact

The pharmacy profession is in the midst of great change. It is evolving from a product-focused model to a patient-focused model, and future pharmacists need innovative approaches to meet new challenges of health care to maximize their quality of service.

The Kennedy Center will help the South Carolina College of Pharmacy prepare the entrepreneurs who will thrive in this new environment and become the leaders shaping the future of pharmacy.

In so doing, the Kennedy Center will have a tremendous impact on the College, the University of South Carolina, the practice and profession of pharmacy, and the State of South Carolina.

Impact on the College
Additional collaboration with schools of public health and business will enhance the College's intellectual capital, leading potentially to the development of new curricular programs; opportunities made possible through the Kennedy Center will attract the brightest and most entrepreneurial pharmacy students and faculty; the Center will elevate the national profile of the SCCP. The College will offer new courses, a combined doctor of pharmacy / MBA, and expand student training opportunities.

Impact on the University
The collaborative environment will attract additional bright, entrepreneurial students and faculty to the schools of public health and business, as well as pharmacy. The research and discovery that take place will lead to important new scholarly works, grants and patents.

Impact on Practice and the Profession
The pharmacy profession will have to develop new practice models and operating systems as healthcare reform redefines traditional roles of healthcare providers. Today's pharmacists need innovative ways to incorporate developments in dispensing - warehousing, robotics, Internet-based pharmacies, information technology, etc. - into sustainable practice; tomorrow's pharmacists need innovative ways to incorporate current theory and new research and discovery - medical home and similar patient care concepts introduced in health care reform, medication therapy management, pharmacogenomics - into sustainable practice.

Impact on South Carolina
As the new models and practice methods are created, current pharmacists will be involved through practice sites, volunteer leadership and in other ways. Each graduating class will send more entrepreneurial pharmacists into the workforce. As more and more South Carolina pharmacists adopt new practice models, they will be able to provide better services to their patients. Improved outcomes will occur exponentially, leading to reductions in overall healthcare costs. The state also has the opportunity to become a national leader in this important healthcare area.

The Kennedy Center's vision begins with Bill and Lou Kennedy recognizing the need for future pharmacists to get better training in innovative thinking. Trained as a pharmacist, Bill Kennedy's personal innovation was what made him so successful (see About the Kennedys). Teaching students to enter their careers with that kind of broad, creative thinking is what the Kennedy Center is all about. The specifics of how that is implemented will be the product of dedicated entrepreneurial thought, collaborative brainstorming and the collective inputs of many advisors.

Conceptual Specifics: CLICK HERE FOR ILLUSTRATED CASES