July 2017
Dear Section Colleagues,
I am excited to begin my term as Chair of the Section for 2017-2018. Contributing to our Section as a volunteer leader has been one of the most rewarding professional experiences of my career. Thank you for the opportunity to serve our Section this year so we can continue to provide great value in programming, resources, networking, and advocacy.
An important message discussed in the Executive Committee and by many of you is the need for our Section to assist with addressing the many issues and priorities that we encounter daily. The volume of information we access and the expertise needed to address issues is a constant challenge for practice leaders. Specifically, having the ability to identify, react, and be nimble to emergent needs as they arise and to prevail over barriers and missing or incomplete information. Many of these issues recently are in the financial and regulatory areas, where patients and healthcare professionals receive little to no advanced notification of a problem. One example of this type of issue is the site of care challenges in which patients are unable to receive care with their routine providers and in safe infusion settings because payors reduce or remove reimbursement in health-system settings. In my organization this issue first came to my attention when a long standing infusion patient presented a letter they received from their insurance company informing them their plan no longer covered the infusion at our hospital. Instead, they were to receive their infusion in their home with care overseen by a provider new to them. Scenarios like these are prevalent in practice and we need mechanisms to discuss and address them as they arise so our patients have access to the care they need by the providers they know.
The concept of being nimble was at the center of our Executive Committee’s discussions at the ASHP Summer meeting. The Section has undergone an evolution in strategic planning to reorganize and update the structures within which we address our needs. Some of these changes included creating new Section Advisory Groups (SAGs) for Multi-Hospital Pharmacy Executives and Innovation Management. With these changes our dedicated volunteers have created incredible tools, webinars, blogs, and other resources for all of us to utilize as we strive to stay ahead of the wave and nimble. This month the appointment notifications have been completed for the 2017-2018 advisory groups and committee members starting their work for you… the Section members! Let us know what those key issues are you feel we need to be more nimble on as our groups get started on their work. (E-mail sections@ashp.org)
A goal the Executive Committee has placed at top of our list for the upcoming year is improving the expediency and vehicles we get information to Section members, both on issues that are evolving quickly in the market place and on resources and tools the Section has developed. Additional areas of focus for the Section this year will be the continuous improvement of the format of the Conference for Pharmacy Leaders with a renewed focus on developing leaders at all levels of the Pharmacy Enterprise and preparing our members for challenges like the one I discuss above. We will also work on more frequent and meaningful touch points with past Section leaders to harvest ideas from this talented and experienced group of leaders, and to get their input on practice challenges. Lastly, we are also working to engage HSPA residents and young leaders in our SAGs and to benefit from their updated and cutting edge knowledge given their recent graduation from schools. These approaches are a step in the right direction for assisting us in challenging and ever-changing work environments and we will continue to find ways to address important issues based on the priorities needed by our members.
Please continue to share your ideas and needs with us and to provide feedback on how we are serving you.
In closing, I want to recognize and thank the other members of the Section’s Executive Committee Immediate Past Chair Rick Couldry and Directors-at-Large Sam Calabrese and Phil Brummond. James Hoffman and Kristine Gullickson recently completed service on the committee. I also want to recognize the important contributions made by our Section Advisory Group leaders and many volunteers, as well as our Staff Liaison David Chen. Thank you for the opportunity to serve you this year and I look forward to the accomplishments we will achieve.
Best regards,
Jennifer Tryon, Pharm.D, M.S., FASHP
Chair, Section of Pharmacy Practice Managers (2017-2018)
Associate Vice President and Chief Pharmacy Officer, Wake Forest Baptist Health
sections@ashp.org