Adherence Counseling and the Buddy System

Today, we spent the afternoon at the Imani Workshop. The Imani Workshop is one of the many unique programs offered by the comprehensive HIV care approach utilized by AMPATH. The Imani Workshop provides income security to the HIV positive patients receiving care through AMPATH by employing them to make a wide variety of crafts that are sold all over the world. The pictures in this blog are of the actual warehouse where many of these products are made. Today, the pharmacy students and I went to the workshop to provide these patients with counseling and various teaching points about their medications and disease. As you can see the pharmacy students were quickly integrated into the group of patients as the patients/employees were all very eager to take advantage of this opportunity to ask our students about the intricacies of their medications. One of the other things the pictures illustrate is our Kenyan buddy system. To further enhance the collaboration that is present at every level of AMPATH, the Purdue pharmacy students have been paired up with Kenyan counterparts from the University of Nairobi, School of Pharmacy. This collaboration has allowed us to improve care for patients by combining the advanced knowledge of the Purdue pharmacy students and the hands on Kenyan experience of their counterparts from Nairobi. At the same time, the Purdue and Kenyan students are able to engage in a bilateral exchange of information as they attempt to address many of the patient issues they face on a daily basis. They currently collaborate on rounds, counseling, and topic discussion. One of the common themes throughout all of these blogs is that this is just the beginning and I fully expect that many great things will come from these simple collaborative partnerships. I look forward to seeing the impact the next generation of Purdue and Kenyan pharmacy students will have on patient care.