Economic justification for a public school of pharmacy: lessons for Nevada

There is a nationally recognized shortage of pharmacists in the United States that is more pronounced in the West. This shortage will worsen with the rapid growth and aging of the population. Demand for traditional pharmaceutical care services has grown faster in the last decade than predicted and is projected to outpace the entry of pharmacists into the workforce. The growth of direct patient care roles for pharmacists, together with the increasing need for pharmacist services in the management of health care, threatens to overpower the present capacity of pharmaceutical education. Healthcare officials and consumers alike are becoming increasingly concerned about the pressure on pharmacist services leading to decreased access to pharmaceutical care and an increase in the frequency of medication errors both having a major impact on the health of patients. While the impact of the pharmacist shortage on the quality of pharmaceutical care has been the subject of recent concern, the role of pharmacists in economic development has not been adequately addressed. In this review, we examine the impact of the shortage of pharmacists and apply economic principals to the impact created by the addition to a state economy of a public school of pharmacy. We apply this analysis to the proposed addition of a public school of pharmacy in Nevada, the fastest growing state in the nation, which currently has a single, private pharmacy school.