Preparing pharmacists for public health services (prepps)

The National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences awarded Empowerx, Inc. $245,264 on August 1, 2026, under CFDA 93.350 (National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences) to develop software training tools that prepare pharmacists and pharmacy students to deliver public health services.

The funded project, Preparing Pharmacists for Public Health Services (PREPPS), will create software designed to address a documented gap in training strategies for implementing pharmacist-provided public health interventions—including contraceptive prescribing, HIV prevention medication dispensing (PEP/PREP), tobacco cessation services, and minor ailment testing and treatment. Empowerx will employ a design thinking process beginning with user-centered research to understand the needs of pharmacists and pharmacy students, with the software ultimately available for continuing education credits and integration into pharmacy school curricula.

Empowerx, a woman-owned small business based in Del Mar, California, brings prior experience developing implementation software for pharmacist-prescribed services under prior NIH awards. The award obligates $245,264 with a performance period from August 1, 2026, through January 31, 2027, with work performed in Del Mar, California.

Abstract

Community pharmacists are playing a growing role in improving public health and increasing access to preventive care via pharmacist-provided public health services beyond traditional dispensing and medication counseling.1-4 pharmacists in various states are allowed to prescribe contraceptives, PEP/prep for HIV prevention, tobacco cessation products, test and treat for minor ailments, and more.1-4 by providing these services, pharmacists have demonstrated their ability to support public health, decrease chronic diseases, increase patient access to preventive care, and reduce health care costs.5-10 however, implementation of these public health services in community pharmacies remains low, despite widespread interest from pharmacists and patients.11-26 the current GAP is that while a lack of innovative training strategies that reflect current pharmacy practice environments has been identified as a major barrier to implementation, no known solution exists. Our solution, the preparing pharmacists for public health services (prepps) software will be available to pharmacists for continuing education credits and pharmacy students through pharmacy school curricula. Our business, empowerx, INC has experience developing software for pharmacists to address barriers to implementation of pharmacist-prescribed contraceptive services as a part of an sbir phase II award from the centers for disease control and prevention. We will use this expertise to inform our work to support development of a training software to prepare the current and future pharmacist workforce and support implementation. In phase i of this grant, we will gain an understanding of end-user (pharmacists and pharmacy student) needs when IT comes to preparing pharmacists for providing public health services as we work through the first five iterative phases of the design thinking process: 1) empathize, 2) define, 3) ideate, 4) prototype, and 5) test.27 in phase II, we will complete the final phase of the design thinking process: implement. The contribution of the proposed research is a market-ready prepps software that will increase pharmacists' and pharmacy students' readiness and implementation of pharmacist-provided public health services. At the conclusion of this project, we will have a market-ready, proven, user-informed prepps software application that will facilitate future and current pharmacist workforce readiness to provide public health services and the implementation of pharmacist-provided public health services.