September 2019
Dear Colleagues,
Thank you for the opportunity to serve as your Chair of the Section for 2019-2020. This year we have many exciting new initiatives to share with you and we have created even more opportunities for members to be involved with the section and / or to obtain education/tools to use in practice.
I would like to recognize several people who have been critical to the Section’s recent success, our outgoing leadership team. Kristi Gullickson (Immediate Past Chair), Jennifer Tryon (Outgoing Past Chair) and Phil Brummond (Outgoing Director at Large) have helped elevate the section’s programming and strategy. We are grateful for their dedication and outstanding contributions to the Executive Committee and the Section. They have not only been outstanding to work with, but have also served as mentors to me as I enter my tenure as Chair. We are fortunate to have Phil continuing with the Executive Committee as Chair-Elect and we welcome Lindsey Kelley as our new Director at Large Elect.
I also would like to recognize and thank the other members that have an integral part of the success of the section: Directors-at-Large Lindsey Amerine and Robert Granko, and the important contributions made by our Section Advisory Group leaders and many volunteers as well as our exceptional ASHP Staff Liaison David Chen, without whose dedication, the Section would not have achieved such tremendous success.
In Kristi’s final Chair address, she introduced the updated name for our section: Section of Pharmacy Practice Leaders as well as our refreshed Strategic Plan mission, vision and includes our new Section Advisory Groups (SAGs) and Committees. We are excited about the updates and the new and expanded opportunities they provides for our members to get involved. We have over 125 volunteers that are part of these teams, working together to meet the Section’s goals and in turn achieving ASHP’s overall Strategic Plan.
The SAGs and committees will be working hard to develop education and tools not just for the leaders in our section, but for the many leaders within the five other sections of ASHP. This Team of Teams will be working diligently to address issues facing leaders today including USP797/800 regulations, PBMs, multi-hospital systemness, industry disrupters, and payor relationships. The groups will soon begin their meetings to develop goals around these issues.
We are thrilled to be returning to Dallas this year for the ASHP Conference for Pharmacy Leaders where we have put together a program that will definitely meet our members’ needs for issues they are facing within their organizations and health systems. This year we also have pre-conference meetings geared toward two levels of leaders. Please review the descriptions of these meetings to identify if one may be right for your development. A great aspect of the Conference is the number of HSPAL residents that attend with 100-plus already committed to attending. The Section hosts several events for these HSPAL residents to facilitate their networking and supplement their learning experiences. The Conference also hosts a Woman in Pharmacy Leadership networking breakfast that will be facilitated by Kristi Gullickson. In addition, we will also recognize this year’s John W. Webb award recipient, Scott Knoer, who will be delivering his lecture entitled: Pharmacy as a Calling.
In closing, we invite you to please continue to share your ideas with us and provide feedback on how we are serving you. Throughout the year with my Chair’s message I’ll be asking for information to help ensure we are on target with your needs. We hope you take the opportunity to let us know what keeps you up at night. On behalf of our entire Executive Committee, we pledge to continue to be open, innovative and nimble as we partner with our Section Advisory Groups and Committees to leverage the insights and wisdom from our rising and past leaders to pursue new ways to bring value to you... our members. Your feedback is important in this process, so please contact us at anytime via email on key issues that you would like the Section to focus on.
Thank you for the opportunity to serve you this year and I look forward to hearing your thoughts, opinions, and suggestions over the next year.
Best regards,
Sam Calabrese, B.S.Pharm., M.B.A., FASHP
Chair, Section of Pharmacy Practice Leaders (2019-2020)
sections@ashp.org