May 2017
Dear Friends and Colleagues,
As I write this final Chair’s message, I hope you are enjoying the celebration and renewal that comes with graduation of our residents and the incoming new class. It’s a great time of year both with this changing of the guard of residents and with the great weather that I hope you get to enjoy.
Serving as the Chair of our Section has been a tremendous honor and deeply gratifying for me personally. The contributions of those that participated in the Section Advisory Groups and Educational Steering Committee have been excellent this year. I am extremely grateful for the work, of the Sections, and in particular of the Chairs and Vice-Chairs who volunteer to lead them. The members who choose to work the Section groups are the engine that drives the contributions of our Section. Without their work, we would not be able to accomplish nearly so much.
A few years ago at the ASHP Conference for Leaders, the keynote speaker referenced the changing landscape of healthcare. This is not a new theme; however what resonated with me was that he didn’t focus on how we must be prepared to handle change, because that is a constant, but that we must focus on how we will deal with the pace of change that is upon us. I find this subtle acknowledgment of the world we work in to be even more salient today. This pace of change creates opportunities that are on our horizon such as:
“Population Health” — Continuing to define not only what this means, but what it can mean for our patients, our profession and our future roles. Well learned health-system pharmacist skills in utilization management and cost reduction may be reapplied with new value.
Pay for Quality — The continual shift from old pay for work models to pay for quality models will intersect with this and pharmacists will have new and exciting work to help manage new paradigms.
Pharmacy Enterprise — The continued evolution of the Pharmacy Enterprise, what it means to health-systems, and what roles pharmacy leaders will develop into is an exciting proposition in our future.
This year our Section Executive Committee worked on some key projects that were both in support of our future development and decidedly driven by member needs:
- Enterprise-wide Regulatory Compliance Monitoring: The combined growth of pharmacy enterprises in conjunction with heightened compliance demands is driving work to provide members with innovative ideas on how to incorporate ‘trust but verify’ systems into your pharmacies
- Next-level Leadership Training: A group led by Section Executive Committee members is developing a second generation boot camp to be focused on leadership development to support mid-career leaders.
- Integrating Innovation into Daily Practice: The Section has produced a number of blogs and a student focused workshop leveraging the Pharmacy Forecast as a focal point for ‘thinking forward’.
- Controlled Substance Management and Prescribing: Section members developed ASHP’s new guidelines and provided a webinar series on this critical topic facing our organizations.
- USP 797/800 Sterile Compounding demands on the Health-System Pharmacy Enterprise: A task force to evaluate the complexities, costs and means to support members is underway.
This is just sampling of the opportunities before our profession and work done by this amazing Section. I am truly humbled to have had the opportunity to serve as Chair.
Additionally, I have been incredibly fortunate to serve on the Section Executive Committee with peers that have supported, directed, and worked as a great team to lead our efforts. I am proud to call them friends and fortunate to have such great folks to work with. Thank you to Jen Tryon, Phil Brummond, Sam Calabrese, Kristi Gullickson and James Hoffman. I want to make a special nod to James, as the Chair before me who always took special care to give me tips and pointers along the way. Thanks, of course to David Chen, our ASHP Section leader, who is a passionate leader, a wise mentor and kind friend. Our Section is lucky to have him. I look forward to serving as Past-Chair as Jen takes the reigns this next year.
Sincerely,
Rick
Rick Couldry, M.S., B.S.Pharm., FASHP
Chair, Section of Pharmacy Practice Managers
sections@ashp.org