August 2023
Dear Colleagues,
What an honor it is for me to be writing to you as the chair of the ASHP Section of Ambulatory Care Practitioners! I am excited to serve the section as we embark on the 2023-2024 volunteer year. Reflecting back to just a couple months ago at the ASHP Summer Meetings in Baltimore, I was incredibly humbled as I walked up to be sworn in as chair. I could not help but notice the unbelievable audience in front of me that included delegates, executive committee members from across all ASHP sections, our ASHP board members, students, residents, family members, and leaders in pharmacy. Standing next to my fellow section chair colleagues being sworn in was special. This was an inspiring crowd that was undoubtedly prepared to take action on new ASHP president Nishaminy Kasbekar’s words, “be the change!”
While in Baltimore, the Executive Committee worked hard in planning for this upcoming year, and we are looking forward to all of the positive change that will come from the charges developed for the Section Advisory Groups (SAGs). Many great policies that support ambulatory care were approved during the House of Delegates, including policies that address pharmacoequity, gender-affirming care, well-being and resilience, medication administration, point-of-care testing, over-the-counter hormonal contraceptives, a Statement on Precepting as a Professional Obligation, and more.
Right now is a thrilling time to be an ambulatory care pharmacist, and with the advocacy of ASHP, the future is bright! ASHP’s efforts toward expanding access to pharmacist-provided care through advocating for provider status on the state and federal level has led to many exciting achievements, particularly at the state level, this past year. As we learned very recently, we now have collaborative practice opportunities in 50 states! As ASHP continues to advocate for provider status and reimbursement for our services, I hope that as ambulatory care practitioners we can be a loud voice in those efforts. Finding ways that you can contribute to those efforts will continue to be an emphasis of the work done in the Section this year.
The healthcare landscape has changed a great deal over the past several years, and with it, we have also seen changing needs of the pharmacy workforce. I believe we are on the precipice of a turning point in the pharmacy profession with the elderly population growing, healthcare services expanding and becoming more complex while experiencing shortages in primary care, and the growing shortage of student pharmacists. In order to meet the needs of patients, we will need to develop specific and effective ways to help recruit diverse future pharmacists, while also better informing the public about what we as ambulatory care pharmacists can do to optimize our patients’ health! Additionally, we will need to embrace the digital future of healthcare that has already welcomed artificial intelligence, telehealth and other digital technology.
As you enter the new volunteer year, I encourage you to start thinking about success stories related to how you provide care. How are you are practicing as a provider? How are you sustaining services through billing and reimbursement? How have you successfully implemented provider status? We have a robust collection of literature demonstrating that involving pharmacists in patient care leads to positive clinical, humanistic and economic outcomes. Yet, there is a scarcity in finding and sustaining the “how”. I hope that we can learn from each other, and embrace concepts of implementation science to identify the contextual factors, barriers and facilitators that will ultimately help us positively change the way we sustain our practices across all areas of ambulatory care.
Lastly, I owe a tremendous amount of gratitude to Jackie Boyle, now Immediate Past-Chair of the SACP, who provided outstanding Section leadership this past year as well as priceless mentorship and guidance to me during my Chair-elect year. The outgoing members of the SACP Executive Committee have also made incredible contributions as leaders to our Section, helping guide the future of ambulatory care practice. Thank you to Daniel Truelove, who served as Chair, and Christina DeRemer, who served as Director-at-Large, for all of your hard work, dedication to service, and vision for positive change. I have comfort and confidence knowing that they have handed the torch over to a team of current Executive Committee members that will continue their impressive work, which includes Directors-at-Large Ashley Parrott and Jordan Wulz.
As ASHP President Kasbekar stated in Baltimore, “The idea that each of us can be the change that we wish to see in the world—personally, professionally, and in our communities—is tremendously motivating.” I could not agree more! Cheers to a successful year of service and collaboration!
Respectfully,
Brody Maack, PharmD, BCACP, CTTS
Chair, Section of Ambulatory Care Practitioners
[email protected]