USP Calls for Pharmacists to Volunteer to Advance Global Public Health Standards

Pharmacy Times^® interviewed Farah Towfic, PharmD, MBA, RPh, senior director, Healthcare Quality and Safety Center of Excellence, US Pharmacopeia (USP), on the critical role of expert volunteer recruitment in USP’s mission. USP relies on over 9000 public quality standards developed with the help of expert volunteers, including pharmacists. The organization recruits every 5 years, with the next cycle beginning on July 1, 2025. Pharmacists can apply for volunteer roles, such as expert advisors or panel members, until March 13, 2025. These roles help shape global standards, ensuring they are scientifically rigorous, evidence-based, and relevant across diverse patient populations and practice settings.

Towfic highlighted the importance of health literacy, noting that 47% of American adults have limited health literacy, which can lead to medication misuse and patient safety risks. USP addresses this challenge through tools such as General Chapters <17> (prescription container labeling) and <1265> (written prescription drug information), alongside partnerships with organizations such as Institute for Safe Medication Practices (ISMP). These resources aim to simplify medication instructions using clear language, standardized measurements (eg, milliliters instead of teaspoons), and visual aids.

Portrait of a young pharmacist in a pharmacy. Image Credit: © Halfpoint - stock.adobe.com

Looking ahead, USP’s upcoming strategic cycle will focus on supply chain resilience, ensuring quality medicine access, and supporting innovation in treatment modalities. Towfic encouraged pharmacists to join USP's diverse pool of expert volunteers to help advance these critical public health initiatives.

If you'd like to amplify your impact as a USP Expert Volunteer, apply to share your expertise, knowledge, and experience with others from around the world. Deadline for applications is March 7, 2025.

Pharmacy Times: Why is expert volunteer recruitment a critical part of USP’s mission, and what specific roles or responsibilities do pharmacists typically fulfill as USP volunteers?

Farah Towfic, PharmD, MBA, RPh: So, pharmacists and expert volunteer recruitment is a critical part of the work that we deliver. I mentioned our more than 9000 public quality standards are created through our expert volunteers. Of course, part of our expert volunteer pool includes pharmacists. So, every 5 years, we actually go through a period for USP where we begin the process of recruiting for our expert volunteers. So, we're actually at a unique time at the end of June—well, July 1, 2025, we're going to be launching our new 5-year strategic cycle. So, as part of that, of course, we need expert volunteers that are going to be selected so that they can help create the standards and the work that we do over the next 5-year period.

So right now, expert volunteer recruitment is open, and that information will also be shared, and individuals can apply to be part of our—including pharmacists—can apply to be part of our expert volunteer pool until that application period closes on March 13. So, we have many, many opportunities, including ones that's an expert advisor or expert panel member. So, these are ones where—you may not have the [ability to commit to] a monthly meeting cadence, but you might have special expertise in pediatric pharmacy, for example, something like that, where you have a specific niche, a focus, and you can sign up to just be an expert panel member or expert advisor. That way we can call upon you when we're working on a particular topic where your expertise is especially valuable.

I'll back up to the original question on the responsibilities that pharmacists fulfill, and why that expert volunteer recruitment is so important for us. So, these expert volunteers are the ones that help create our public quality standards. And for us to be successful, we've got to have a diverse expert volunteer base. So, diversity includes diversity in the individuals that we're recruiting, diversity in the patient populations that we serve, as well as diversity in the expertise of these individuals that are being recruited, so it could be the type of practice—a health system pharmacist, a community pharmacist, a rural health system provider—whatever it may be. When we have a diversity in the experiences, we know that the standards we create are far more globally applicable when we bring that global and diverse expertise [that] strengthen the standards that we deliver to the world.

Pharmacists actively participate in the development and revision of our standards, as well as the proposed standards, to ensure that they're evidence based, scientifically rigorous, as well as relevant in the world. So, like I said, we can push out a standard into the world, but until people know how to use that standard, we certainly know that you don't get the maximum benefit of having these standards out there and the impact that we expect when it comes to the quality of medicine.

So, I'll especially do a plug for the health care safety and quality of volunteers. So that's one of the expert committees that USP is going to have in the collaborative groups, I should say, that USP is going to have in the new strategic cycle. So those include 4 expert committees, health care, safety, quality, and nomenclature, personalized medicines, health care, information and technology, as well as our compounding expert committees. So those we especially need pharmacists and health practitioner expertise to help inform the standards that will be created through that space. So now is that period for volunteering to apply through March 13, 2025.

Pharmacy Times: How does USP address the challenge of health literacy through its portfolio?

Towfic: Health literacy continues to be a priority topic. So let me just share in the US alone, we know that health literacy is especially important in improving public health. So about 90 million American adults—we looked this number up recently—90 million American adults, that's 47% of the population, have limited health literacy, and we know that that puts them at much higher risk for adverse medication use. So, if somebody doesn't understand how they're supposed to be using the medicines that they have, they could end up taking too much of that medicine [or] too little of that medicine. They could end up not taking a medicine for the duration that is intended. For example, for anti-microbials, we know how important it is to finish the course of that therapy to help prevent anti-microbial resistance. So, 47% of American adults have limited health literacy—that's significant, and it's a significant public health challenge that we're helping to meet.

USP offers several health literacy tools and solutions. So even beyond what I'll share here today, there's a lot that we've dedicated to help ensure patient understanding in mitigating medication errors. Of course, we partner with institutions like [ISMP] to ensure that this information is out there and is utilized by health care practitioners in their work with patients, so these standards and solutions help support social determinants of health through various learning styles.

For example, we have General Chapter <17> that talks about prescription container labeling. What information should be out there? What style should it support? What format should it support so that the critical patient information is received by the patient, and they understand how they're supposed to use their medicine. We also have <1265> on written prescription drug information. So, these are just guidelines on prescription drug leaflet formats. Sometimes, as a pharmacist, what I would do is I would provide additional information in writing to my patients at a level that they can help understand, so that they know how they're supposed to be using their medicine. Sometimes I include pictograms. We have those available that can help a patient be able to see like, ‘Okay, so this says, Take in the morning. There's like a sun symbol behind it.’ So, these are all examples of tools that we can use to help strengthen health literacy that we have out there as part of our standards setting portfolio.

I'll just include an example as well. So, in 2015 we moved away from using a teaspoon full to dose medicines. We eliminated that terminology from our standards, and we moved towards a milliliter, a standard milliliter, we know, a teaspoon full [is] 5 milliliters. So that standard being out there helps—especially with pediatric populations who are typically getting liquid dosing. Usually, it's geriatric patients who may have trouble swallowing, as well as pediatric patients who are receiving treatment. Usually in the liquid form, it's easier for them to swallow. So, in that situation, what we noticed, and especially through partnership with ISMP and data that we've been able to generate, that what was happening is people were using household teaspoonfuls. I have 3 different types of teaspoonfuls at home. When a dosing label says teaspoonful, we know that patients were potentially getting overdosed or potentially getting underdosed when receiving that. So, in saying that a teaspoon full is 5 milliliters, I know that, in my pharmacy practice, what we did was we said, ‘Take 5 milliliters.’ We ensure that a dosing syringe was provided with the medicine when it was dispensed, and that ensures that the patient is getting the accurate dose. So, this is just an example with health literacy that I wanted to share, and especially when we talk about 47% of American adults who have limited health literacy, it can have significant impact on patient safety.

Pharmacy Times: What new work is USP preparing to begin for your new strategic cycle?

Towfic: I mentioned that USP runs on a 5-year strategic cycle. It gives us a lengthy period of time to onboard our expert volunteers and really be able to target the challenges that are [arising] during that period. So, this year, it's no surprise, we're really going to be continuing our work when it comes to strengthening supply chain resilience to ensure access to medicine quality. So of course, our convention membership of more than 500 organizations are ultimately the ones that vote upon the resolutions for the work that we undertake over the next 5 years. So that will be a choice, a voice of our convention in order to help drive that work. We know that that work will continue to focus on securing the supply chain of these medicines, enabling innovation in the latest science, addressing new treatment modalities, so patients can continue to have access to the medicines that they need during that period.

We know that for us to carry out that work, we've got to have the expert volunteers in place in our new strategic cycle in order to be able to carry forward this work. We really want a diverse pool of volunteers. Again, I mean, diversity in the volunteers themselves, diversity in the practice settings that they have. So please join us. I encourage you to apply. Our applications for expert volunteers are due March 13, so it is actually coming up very soon. So please apply, join us as part of this new strategic cycle so that we can help continue to deliver the solutions to help mitigate drug shortages, in order to help ensure the quality of medicines that our patients use, and ultimately to help ensure access for patients for the medicines that they need in order to stay well.