February 2023
Dear Colleagues,
As we reflect back on this past year, we continued our resiliency of navigating the ongoing stressors and challenges in our health systems and communities. On behalf of the Section, thank you for all you do for our patients and staff and leading pharmacy services through these complicated times. Despite the complexities, I’ve been inspired by so many of you who continue to push our practices forward. It is my honor to be able to provide an update on events and recognize the work of our dedicated Section volunteers. One of the greatest strengths of our profession is the persistent and generous sharing of ideas and time to support one another. The willingness to share ideas and best practices really furthers our pursuit of helping our patients achieve optimal medication-related outcomes.
I would like to recognize two awardees on behalf of the Section. First, congratulations to Steve Sheaffer as the 2022 John W. Webb Lecture Awardee. Steve’s award was highlighted during the 2022 Conference for Pharmacy Leaders and at Northeastern University as he provided great insights with his lecture titled “Wait What? Clinicians as our Future Leaders?” where he celebrated and challenged us to envision and pursue leadership in hospitals and health systems at all levels because we as pharmacists, as clinicians, are exceptionally trained and equipped to do well in these roles. . In addition, I’d like to recognize Kate Schaafsma on her selection as the Section’s Distinguished Service Awardee during the 2022 MCM. Congratulations to Steve and Kate!
In addition to the celebrations, our Section has worked diligently on a number of key items including technician workforce, leadership pipeline, site of care, centralized shared services, and population health.
- Section members have held multiple roundtables, recorded podcasts, and collaborated to share ideas on resolving the ongoing technician workforce shortage. ASHP continues to lead advocacy efforts for our technicians.
- Over the upcoming months the Section will be building programming and additional resources to support leaders in succession planning as well as collecting information on where we stand in the areas of pipeline and retention of our pharmacy leaders. Plan ahead as there will be great workshops at the 2023 Conference for Pharmacy Leaders on these topics.
- Site of care and continued payer pressures steering patients away from their primary providers and health systems is a continuing challenge. ASHP’s advocacy efforts continue to focus on payer and PBM issues. Be on the look-out in the next couple of months for a virtual networking event on home infusion and infusion services development.
- Centralized shares services are growing and advancing as we build efficiencies and economies of scale into our pharmacy enterprises. The Section distributed the results of a survey reporting the results from 73 multi-hospital health systems. This sharing of information and innovation is what propels us as a profession forward!
- The Section continues to work on efforts related to population health. Many health-systems have built their own population health teams and through a series of roundtables and discussions, the Section has pulled leaders together to discuss best practices and business modeling and will continue developing education and resources.
In closing, thank you for all the work you are doing to support the Section, our profession, and most importantly our patients. We want to know what issues you are facing and how we can better meet your needs, so please email us at [email protected] at any time.
With gratitude,
Lindsey B. Amerine, PharmD, MS, BCPS, FASHP
Chair, Section of Pharmacy Practice Leaders (2022-2023)
[email protected]