Abstract
It has truly been my honor to serve as President of the New York State Council of Health-system Pharmacists (NYSCHP) this past year. The time has gone so fast. As I reflect on this past year, I am grateful and amazed at all of the hard work so many individuals have contributed to strengthen our organization. And I am proud to announce that we achieved many of our goals: we helped to get the expanded Collaborative Drug Therapy Management (CDTM) bill passed, we have held numerous successful educational programs, our financial situation has improved, we are expanding local chapters into underrepresented areas of the state, and we continue to improve on our communication to keep our membership well informed. I am thrilled to be a part of these accomplishments but cannot take the credit for any of them. These successes are due to the tireless work of our members, committees, Chapter Presidents, Board of Directors (BOD), and the Council office.
These goals were all developed through our strategic plan, which is the tool that has been utilized to help lead the organization and focus our efforts. The components of the strategic plan are as follows.
Advocacy—being the voice of health-system pharmacy practice in New York State. Education—providing the educational resources necessary for pharmacists to advance their practice and maintain their competence. Growth/fiscal stability—establishing a systematic approach to ensure fiscal and membership growth. Leadership—providing the necessary resources to develop a membership with strong leadership skills. Communication—promoting the organization and its mission, vision, and purpose to pharmacists and the public.
Here is the current state of our organization in my view based on our strategic plan.
Advocacy
Our legislative agenda has continued this year to include support for pharmacy technician registration and certification. This law will improve patient safety, diminish drug abuse, and expand the capabilities of pharmacists. We still have a few hurdles to get over to move this forward, but I have confidence that Monica Mehta, Vice President of Public Policy and the Public Policy committee, along with all of our members will get the job done!
Education
The Continuing Competency Committee (CCC), led by Karen Berger and Kanika Ballani and overseen by Heide Christensen, NYSCHP Director of Education and Workforce Development, has done an outstanding job developing our numerous continuing education (CE) programs. We had a record number of attendees at the Tri-State meeting in September, which included a leadership development program for students and residents. Also new this year was the inclusion of a very well-received pilot of resident clinical pearls session at the Jan Keltz Memorial Program. The residents all did a fantastic job! The CCC also piloted remote programming at the Winter Pharmacotherapy program, which despite a few early glitches went on to be a big success. The CCC also got help from other NYSCHP members for some of the CE offerings. Amy Dzerba, Kimberly Zammit, and Lisa Voigt put together the 2 critical care programs. Amy also coordinated the annual student program downstate last summer. It was such a success that plans are already in the works to host this program upstate this fall at St John Fisher College with Matt Zak and Nicole Cieri coordinating the program.
The Annual Assembly (AA) is the yearly event that offers the most CE programming for our organization. But, it also contains social gatherings, networking opportunities, policy-making venues (ie, the House of Delegates), and the Residency Research & Practice Forum (RRPF). Leila Tibi-Scherl and Leigh Briscoe-Dwyer as the co-chairs of the AA committee work tirelessly all year to organize this amazing program. I am in awe of their ability to manage so many different components for this meeting!
Growth/Fiscal Stability
One large concern we had at the beginning of my presidential year was how to ensure the financial stability of the organization. Shaun Flynn along with our Treasurer Philip Manning, the BOD and the Audit Committee, led by Bruce Pleskow, have worked tirelessly on this task and I am happy to say that things have turned around and we are now much more financially sound. Great job everyone!! We are now looking to make additional improvements in the reorganization of office activities. This will streamline processes, enhance member communication, and allow for expansion of services.
Leadership
We have just reinstated the Southern Tier chapter in an effort spearheaded by a group of individuals in that region. This is a perfect time for this chapter to reengage, as the new school of pharmacy at SUNY Binghamton will be admitting its first class in the fall of 2017. We also have a new chapter being created in the “North Country” around Plattsburgh. Both of these chapters will help to move the organization into areas of the state that have often been underrepresented. The local leaders driving the formation of these chapters have worked diligently to identify prospective members, recruit leaders to serve their chapter, and developed their constitution and bylaws. Bill Prescott, NYSCHP Director of Chapter Services, was instrumental in reaching out to the potential leaders for these chapters and guiding them in this process.
Communication
Communication is vital to any organization. The Public Relations committee, led by Jason Babby and overseen by Catherine Millares-Sipin, NYSCHP Director of Communications, continues to produce news briefs that are full of up-to-date information of local chapter and council events, highlighting all of the hard work that is going on statewide for the organization. They created a public marketing campaign this past fall by adopting the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists’ (ASHP) “Let’s Talk Medications” campaign and redesigned buttons with the NYSCHP logo and distributed them to every school of pharmacy in the state. The committee has also started to include a 1-page “Upcoming Events” description in the Journal of Pharmacy Practice (JPP). We are in the process of revising the contract with JPP and based on feedback from a membership survey will be moving to an online-only version of the journal in the next year. The Council office continues to disseminate information, news, and events on a timely basis via blast e-mails and through social media (ie, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn). Finally, during this meeting, you will be hearing more about the logo redesign contest that the committee is sponsoring. We look forward to seeing everyone’s great ideas for a new logo!
The local chapters are the lifeblood of NYSCHP and we can’t overlook their vital role. The Chapter Presidents and local Boards of Directors have done tremendous work to ensure excellent CE is being provided to members. We have also seen several chapters providing networking programs and social activities to further engage members. Communication between the Council and local chapters has been at an all-time high with many Chapter Presidents having participated in Council BOD meetings via teleconference and the numerous Chapter President calls. I am so encouraged by the excellent dialogue and exchange of ideas that is occurring and by the positive changes and initiatives that have been produced via these conversations. Keep up the great work!!
These are fantastic accomplishments, but we need to carry this momentum into the future. Let’s review several items that the Council will be working on in the upcoming year.
First, our current strategic plan has been in place for 3 years. We will soon be inviting current, past, and future leaders to a strategic planning session to be held this fall to review, revise, and update the strategic plan.
I’m also proud to announce that we will be holding a Leadership Summit at the SUNY Binghamton School of Pharmacy this upcoming fall. This event will bring together leaders from NYSCHP and other pharmacy organizations from around the state to confer on the goals of our profession and ensure we have a unified vision.
This past year, there have been several inroads made in trying to reach underrepresented membership groups. A student, Fawad Piracha, was added to the AA committee in order to gain ideas of how to better incorporate student programming at that meeting. The Faculty-Student Liaison Committee will also be reviewing potential student programming for the AA and ways to support their attendance. This is a goal for the 2017 AA.
The Support Personnel Committee, led by Matthew Rewald and overseen by Robert DiGregorio, has been very active this year. Their main accomplishment is getting approval to add a technician as a nonvoting member of the NYSCHP BOD. Matt was recently involved with the Rochester chapter helping to update their Constitution and Bylaws to include a technician on the chapter’s BOD. We have been encouraging other chapters to explore the addition of a technician to their BODs. The committee has also made recommendations to the AA committee to create technician programming for the 2017 AA, including possibly a Pharmacy Technician Certification Board (PTCB) review course.
This past year has already seen an increase in participation of residents in the activities of the NYSCHP. We had the resident clinical pearls session at the Jan Keltz Memorial Winter Program and the inaugural RRPF at the last year’s AA. The program was a huge success, and this year’s RRPF has seen a 40% increase in attendees compared to last year! We will also be exploring the addition of a resident as a nonvoting member of the BOD.
It is such an exciting time to be involved in NYSCHP. So many voices are being heard and ideas are being discussed and enacted to help move us into the future!
I would like to end with a few thank-yous to those who have been so supportive of me and the organization this year.
I would like to start with the 4 individuals who were brand new to the BOD this year: Monica Mehta, Vice-President of Public Policy (VPPP); William Prescott, Director of Chapter Services; Heide Christensen, Director of Education and Workforce Development; and Catherine Millares-Sipin, Director of Communications. I am so impressed with how they all just hit the ground running and made such huge contributions to the Council in each of their areas. Their energy and enthusiasm were contagious. Monica met with Christopher Jadoch, the outgoing VPPP, as soon as she was installed to outline strategies for how to get the CDTM expansion bill approved. She has continued this strong work ethic to advance the pharmacy technician bill. Bill helped direct activities for chapter expansion, revitalized the faculty/student committee, developed an extensive membership survey, and already has a list of projects to work on next year. Heide has helped lead all of our outstanding CE programs. She is so organized and on top of what needs to happen and when! Catherine helped to expand the materials contained in the news briefs and has worked hard to develop a plan for the logo redesign process. I am excited to see what other new ideas this group develops to continue to build on their momentum!
The other members of the BOD have continued to make major contributions to the workings of the Council. Lisa Voigt, Director of Pharmacy Management, was instrumental in leading the discussions with the JPP. I really appreciate that she was always there for me to be my sounding board. I sure am glad her office is only a few doors down from mine! Robert DiGregorio, Director of Pharmacy Practice, has been working so hard to move the technician agenda forward. It is great to see his efforts start to come to fruition! Vincent Giambanco, Director of Industry Relations, has been helpful in discovering new funding opportunities and was able to get financial support for the student award this year. Marcia Gutfeld, Chair of the House of Delegates, is always making sure we look at all the angles of new ideas being discussed and offering historical perspective on many points. She has been such a great mentor to me, not only this year, but throughout my career! Philip Manning was always there to ensure we were being fiscally responsible and now the organization is much more financially stable than we were last year. Joseph Pinto, president-elect, always brought interesting perspectives to items being discussed. I love his enthusiasm and go get ‘em attitude. I am looking forward to handing over the reigns to him and wish him the best of luck. I have to especially thank Elizabeth Shlom, Immediate Past-President, for all of her support and guidance this year. I couldn’t have done it without her! She was often the voice of reason and offered new perspectives to numerous ideas we discussed. I am so impressed with what a great job she did putting together this year’s slate of candidates. Thank you, Liz!
I also need to acknowledge and thank Thomas Lombardi, Chair of the Constitution and Bylaws (C&B) Committee and Parliamentarian (for life!), for his outstanding ability to always know if we are or are not following the C&B and quickly correcting us. He had a very busy year with numerous chapters of C&Bs to review and leading us in the review and update for the Council’s C&B.
Shaun Flynn, NYSCHP Executive Director, has done a tremendous job this year keeping the Council running smoothly. There have been some bumps along the way, but he has given 125% to keep everything working. He is one of the most hard-working individuals I know and I cannot thank him enough for all of his efforts to help me and the organization this year!
Carol Bizan, Membership Coordinator, and Katie Fontana, Industry Relations Coordinator, have been so supportive to me this year. I really appreciate their prompt responses to all of my requests. As Immediate Past-President, I will try to not bother them too much next year, but make no promises!
I would be remiss if I did not thank the individual who got me started in this organization (Kimberly Zammit). Thank you for your ceaseless support and advice, assistance with editing all of my presidential addresses, and always pushing me out of my comfort zone to attain higher goals. We sure have come a long way from that dinner at Zebb’s where you twisted my arm to run for President of our local chapter (yes, I still have the marks to prove it!) and look at me now!
I would also like to thank all of the Chapter Presidents and this year’s Committee Chairs. Without your tireless efforts, we would not have been able to accomplish as much as we did this year! Thank you!
Finally, I would like to thank my family who have been so incredibly supportive this year. Thanks to my husband Dave and my sons Matt and Josh for putting up with my long hours and frequent travel around the state and country. I don’t think I would have been able to be so involved if it had not been for your patience, encouragement, and love. Thank you!
In summation, I am just so tremendously honored to have worked with so many fantastic individuals this year and am so proud of all we have accomplished together!! We have so many energized members that we need to support, and so many potential new members that we need to engage. It is wonderful to see everyone working together for the greater good of the organization and our profession.
Last year in my incoming address, you saw that I love to apply movie quotes to fit different situations. So I would be remiss if I didn’t conclude with a quote from one of my very favorite movies: Back to the Future. I think this quote beautifully represents all the dedication, energy, and enthusiasm I have seen this year during my presidential term. At the end of the movie, George McFly summarizes his success by saying:
Like I’ve always told you, if you put your mind to it, you can accomplish anything.
Thank you!