ASHP

Pharmacy goals, a reality check and insanity – what the heck are we doing?

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I’ve been conversing with several pharmacists about the future of pharmacy practice, specifically about the PPMI developed earlier this year by ASHP. This is a sharp group of people, but what I continually hear is the same thing I’ve heard for a number of years. While I’m not as experienced as many of my esteemed colleagues due to a late start to my career, I have worked in several acute care facilities. I’m not sure who said it, but Einstein gets credit for defining insanity as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

The literature presented in support of a new practice model is, in reality, based on current practice. It’s all looking at how best to apply the pharmacist’s current knowledge and resources to the current practice model. Economic outcomes improved by a pharmacist; great, but not new. Improved patient outcomes with a pharmacist in a team approach; awesome, but not new. Use a pharmacist as a prescriber; cool idea, but not new. These models are easily ten years old and we’re still talking about them as if they were new ideas. See a trend here? I think this is exactly what Einstein had in mind when he defined insanity.

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“What’d I miss?” – The week of December 5

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It’s been a busy week, and pretty much all my attention was focused on the ASHP Midyear event in Anaheim, California. Of course as a pharmacist that’s where my focus should have been, but that doesn’t mean that the rest of the world stopped moving. Here are some of the things I found interesting this week:

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#ASHPMidyear, the end

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Here I sit in the airport on my way home as another great ASHP Midyear has come to a close. This feels strangely familiar.  Anyway, the end of the Midyear meeting is always bittersweet. I’ve taken in about all the information my brain can possibly handle, but each day at Midyear brings something new and exciting, which I will miss. Many attendees departed prior to the final sessions today so it was a virtual ghost town compared to the previous days of the event. The exhibit hall was closed, the small stands for food and drink were gone, the line for coffee was non-existent and session attendance was clearly affected. With all that said, it was still worth hanging around for the final session. Huh, I had to, I was presenting at it; more on that later.

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#ASHPMidyear 2010 part deux

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Today was a great day to be at ASHP Midyear 2010. Things really got going as the sessions were kicked into high gear and the exhibit hall officially opened.

I spent the day tracking down pharmacy automation and technology. Did you really expect me to do anything else? I don’t ever recall being as excited as a clinician as I am being an informatics pharmacist. Anyway, here are some things I found interesting:

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Oh yeah, on my way to #ASHPMidyear 2010

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Here I sit in the airport waiting for my flight to take me to ASHP Midyear 2010 in Anaheim, CA.  ASHP Midyear is the premiere conference/meeting for pharmacists each year. Sure there are larger healthcare conferences/meetings every year, but none are dedicated entirely to the pharmacy profession. As this is only my second ASHP Midyear … Read more

Thoughts on the #PPMI Twitterchat

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ASHP and the ASHP Foundation have undertaken an initiative to change the way pharmacists practice pharmacy. And that initiative is called The Pharmacy Practice Model Initiative (PPMI); go figure. It’s quite an aggressive goal and one that I hope results in some great ideas on how to get pharmacists to the bedside where they have been shown to improve patient care and save hospitals money. Of course I’m banking on judicious use of technology to help lead the way, but that’s just my bias speaking.

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What defines a good pharmacy practice model?

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I received an email today from the ASHP PPMI group asking me to take their pre-summit survey. I did, and you should too if you care about the future of pharmacy practice. In addition to the request for survey participation the email included a link to the PPMI practice spotlight, which just so happened to feature Children’s Hospital Central California (CHCC) where I spent a few years working in their pediatric ICU.

The spotlight article talks about CHCC’s use of decentralized pharmacists as well as judicious use of automation and technology. While working for CHCC I never stopped to considered whether the practice model we were using was advanced or not. It was simply the model we were using at the time. It occurred to me that most people probably don’t see their practice sites as advanced because everything in front of them appears “normal”.

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Participating in the ASHP Summer Meeting from afar #ashpsm10

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The inability to physically be in Tampa, FL shouldn’t stop someone from participating in the ASHP Summer Meeting. Technology doesn’t care that I’m 2700 miles away or that I’m sitting in my home in my bunny slippers with Diet Pepsi in hand. With a webcam and speaker phone I was able to join a user group discussion held by Talyst.

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