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PPMI Week at Northeast Ohio Medical University
From February 24th until March 2nd 2012, Northeast Ohio Medical University’s (NEOMED) Student Society of Health-System Pharmacists (SSHP) hosted a week-long seminar event revolving around several aspects of PPMI. Pharmacy students, medical students, pharmacy faculty, staff, and practitioners were invited to be a part of this exciting event.  Seminars were an hour long and held at lunch time throughout the week.  The seminars were also broadcasted via live video-streaming as well as recorded for later use as videos and podcast.

To start off the week, Dr. Scott Knoer, M.S., Pharm.D., Chief Pharmacy Officer of The Cleveland Clinic Foundation kicked off the week by introducing PPMI to a crowd of about 50 students, faculty, staff, and pharmacists from other institutions at NEOMED.  To listen to this session via podcast, click here. This session provided a great overview of PPMI and suggested ways that health-system pharmacy can begin to plan the development and implementation of a new pharmacy practice model.  He discussed the importance of leveraging technicians to perform non-clinical functions and urged the audience to lobby for legislative changes regarding tech-check-tech being approved in the state of Ohio.  He also talked about ways to bring about system-wide changes in a way that allows all staff to participate in agreeing on changes that need to be made. 

The following Monday, pharmacy and medical students came together to discuss various aspects of PPMI in a student-run forum.  Roundtable discussions focused on talking about challenges and opportunities surrounding several of the PPMI recommendations, and students summarized their thoughts via a secretary at their roundtables.  Student moderators were also present and served the role of leading the discussion at their table; these students were responsible with becoming familiar with PPMI recommendations and developing discussion points prior to the discussion as well.  This session provided a great opportunity for students to network, learn more about PPMI, and most importantly, brainstorm ideas and identify barriers to implementing PPMI in their future professions.

Ms. Erin Ortiz-Blanco, CPhT from The Cleveland Clinic Foundation gave an exciting presentation regarding the evolving role of pharmacy technicians in the health-system. To listen to this session via podcast, click here. She discussed the need for further training and certification of pharmacy technicians as well as barriers regarding the standardization of technician training. ASHP does accredit pharmacy technician programs throughout the country, however programs with ASHP-accreditation status are very much lacking. Ohio has not yet approved tech-check-tech for health-systems in the state, which poses yet another barrier to allowing expanding the role of the pharmacy technician. 

Dr. Mate Soric, PharmD, BCPS, Assistant Professor of Pharmacy Practice at Northeast Ohio Medical University and Clinical Pharmacist of Internal Medicine and Residency Director at  University Hospitals Geauga Medical Center (Chardon, Ohio) gave a seminar on Wednesday, February 29th regarding the role of residents and pharmacy students in PPMI. To listen to this session via podcast, click here.  He discussed the environment of “change” that is occurring in pharmacy practice today; noting the United States Public Health Service and Surgeon General’s support of optimizing the role of pharmacists.  Dr. Soric discussed several ways that students may get involved during their experiential rotations.  These included but are not limited to:  students counseling patients about medications, providing education about disease states, and being an advocate for their profession amongst other healthcare providers.  He talked about how students are the pharmacists of the near future, and that they should be the leaders of change in their profession.  Also, he pointed out that PPMI suggests that students should be “indispensable” to health-systems, implying that our role should fall in the daily operations of every pharmacy department. He encouraged students wishing to pursue a career in health-systems to explore residency options as ASHP and PPMI both support residency-trained pharmacists. As a resident, he points out that PPMI supports research to further clinical practice, as well as urging to pursue certification by the Board of Pharmacy Specialties.

The following day, Dr. Robert Weber PharmD, MS, BCPS, FASHP is currently Senior Director of Pharmaceutical Services at the Wexner Medical Center at The Ohio State University Assistant Dean for Medical Center Affairs at The Ohio State University College of Pharmacy discussed the need for leadership to drive changes in pharmacy. He talked about the importance of emphasizing that any pharmacist can be a leader in their health-system regardless of job description or amount of experience. He also talked about strategic planning and how pharmacists should incorporate PPMI into goal-setting and future plans of the health-system as a whole.

Last but certainly not least, Dr. Tim Brown, PharmD, BCACP, Director of Clinical Pharmacotherapy in the Center of Family Medicine from Akron General Medical Center wrapped up the week with a seminar about ambulatory care and summarized key points from PPMI. To listen to this session via podcast, click here. He pointed out that although ambulatory care is not directly stated in the PPMI recommendations, several recommendations apply to ambulatory care both directly and indirectly.  He discussed that in a time when transition-of-care is becoming much more important and emphasized, ambulatory care centers should capitalize on the opportunity to provide exemplary patient care.  Health-systems are continually attempting to treat patients in the outpatient setting to decrease costs for both the system and the patients involved, decrease the risk of acquiring nosocomial infections as an inpatient, and also improve the convenience and access of healthcare to patients as a whole.  As an ambulatory care pharmacist, Dr. Brown noted that he feels his position has changed to a “family medicine” pharmacist, as he manages chronic diseases as well as multiple family members, often seeing many patients throughout the course of their lives. 

NEOMED’s PPMI week was informational, inspiring, and generated a lot of discussion among students, faculty, and practitioners in the NEOMED community. This idea stemmed from an NEOMED SSHP executive committee planning session in fall of 2011.  The executive committee was highly interested in providing programming about PPMI as the students felt that we should provide a way for students to become more involved.  As students, we felt that we could have an impact on PPMI and develop new ideas regarding influencing pharmacy practice throughout our experiential rotations and at our internship sites.  The future of the pharmacy profession relies on pharmacy students being prepared to become a part of a changing environment, and ASHP has provided several recommendations through the PPMI initiative. So, as a chapter, NEOMED SSHP was eager to find a way to incorporate students in this movement, and hence PPMI week was born.  

Planning for this event began around September, and as Professional Development co-chair, I was responsible for recruiting speakers from various institutions to provide their own unique perspective regarding PPMI.  The president of SSHP, Jason Lionetti, was responsible for organizing students to pick up lunch for those in attendance, and we found that an RSVP to the event was the most helpful in determining how much food to order in advance.  As part of advertising, third year pharmacy student Jacalyn Jones, second year students Liz Shelar and Thomas Stanek sent out emails to the entire student population to gauge interest and required an RSVP to the events.  Advertising was also done via class announcements, flyers around school, and social media including Facebook and Twitter.   Second year student Amanda Gray worked with our Academic Technology Services department to determine a way to provide live-streaming to interested colleges of pharmacy and also recorded videos so that they may be viewed via video or podcast modalities.   Members of SSHP also volunteered to present individual speakers as well as instruct students from other colleges of pharmacy watching live of how to ask questions via Windows Media technology that allowed students to type questions as the presentation was being broadcast.  To publicize this event to other colleges of pharmacy, I wrote a blog about our plans for this event on ASHPConnect, and invited students to email me if they were interested in becoming involved in the event. Also, this event was advertised by ASHP via the Student Forum which allowed for even more exposure to colleges of pharmacy as well. 

There was also significant collaboration with other colleges of pharmacy in Ohio, most specifically Ohio Northern University and The Ohio State University.  Calvin Ice, pharmacy student from Ohio Northern University allowed NEOMED students to have access to a seminar given by ASHP president Stan Kent in which he discussed PPMI and how it related to the current drug shortage crisis.  Jessica Oeder, pharmacy student from The Ohio State University was also instrumental in organizing Dr. Robert Weber’s seminar which was broadcast from The Ohio State University College of Pharmacy.

On behalf of Northeast Ohio Medical University’s SSHP, I would like to thank all of those involved with making PPMI Week such a great success!
Created By: Jaclyn Kruse On: Sat, Jun 09, 2012 08:43 PM

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General : Leadership, PPMI  Audience : Pharmacy Students
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