Joseph A Zorek

Biography

Joe Zorek, PharmD, BCGP, joined the faculty at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (UW-Madison) School of Pharmacy following completion of a two-year Pharmacotherapy Residency at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center, where he developed a clinical specialty in geriatrics with a research focus on interprofessional practice and education (IPE). Joe serves as the School of Pharmacy’s Director of IPE, and he co-chairs a school-wide IPE committee. He is also a founding member of the UW-Madison Center for Interprofessional Practice and Education, which launched in 2016. Joe coordinates a required first year course called “Pathways in Pharmacy Practice,” designed to orient new students to the profession of pharmacy. He also co-coordinates a third year elective course devoted to geriatric pharmacotherapy and a teaching certificate program for pharmacy residents. Joe’s practice interests include incorporation of pharmacists into interprofessional health teams, leveraging pharmacists to facilitate effective transitions of care, and the implementation of population health initiatives to mitigate medication-related risks in older adults. He currently practices as a transitions of care pharmacist at SSM Health St. Mary's Hospital in Madison, WI, and serves as the School of Pharmacy’s liaison to the St. Vincent de Paul Charitable Pharmacy, also located in Madison, WI. Joe’s primary research interests center on IPE, with secondary foci on health outcomes from practice-based innovations and curriculum assessment. His most productive line of research stems from an analysis of IPE accreditation standards he co-authored in the Journal of Interprofessional Care, which highlighted opportunities to utilize the accreditation process to advance IPE throughout the health professions and drew attention to the need for valid and reliable measurement instruments to satisfy IPE mandates. Joe presented an update to this accreditation work last year at the National Academy of Medicine's workshop devoted to "The Role of Accreditation in Enhancing Quality and Innovation in Health Professional Education." He received a grant in 2017 from the National Center for Interprofessional Practice and Education to advance a consensus accreditation approach to interprofessional education through a collaborative effort between the National Center and the Health Professions Accreditors Collaborative. Joe and his collaborators won the 2014 Rufus A. Lyman Award for best paper published in the American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education for their work developing and validating the Student Perceptions of Physician-Pharmacist Interprofessional Clinical Education (SPICE) instrument. He continues to lead the effort to refine the SPICE family of instruments and broaden their applicability throughout the health professions. A validation study of SPICE-R, a revised version intended for a broader audience, was recognized in 2017 with a Baldwin Award as one of the best papers published in the Journal of Interprofessional Care. Joe is an active member of AACP, through which he co-chaired a national taskforce in 2015-2016 dedicated to implementing intentional IPE in experiential education settings. He serves as Associate Editor for Interprofessional Education for the journal Currents in Pharmacy Teaching & Learning and as Associate Editor for the Journal of Interprofessional Education & Practice. Joe is a charter member of the American Interprofessional Health Collaborative, and he is a member of the American Pharmacists Association, the American College of Clinical Pharmacy, the American Society of Consultant Pharmacists, the International Pharmaceutical Federation, and the Pharmacy Society of Wisconsin.

Research Interest

primary research interests center on IPE, with secondary foci on health outcomes from practice-based innovations and curriculum assessment. His most productive line of research stems from an analysis of IPE accreditation standards he co-authored in the Journal of Interprofessional Care