Change will continue to happen fast, at high velocity—and this can be the moment that defines a generation and our profession. The pandemic has amplified the value of the services we, as a pharmacy team, provide. Recent ASHP presidents have prepared us well for this moment by laying out some essential principles to guide us.
Thanks for joining me. While I was growing up, my family moved 18 times in 18 years. I learned to move fast and adapt. It has prepared me well for the role I accept as your new President.
As we enter this next year, our profession confronts 3 imperatives:
Take care of yourself, your family, and those with whom you work.
Transform your practice.
Shape the future of pharmacy and healthcare.
We’ll return to these shortly.
Gathering momentum
This moment in time is historic. It has been a wild race for all of us. We have been going nonstop to make it through this pandemic. Let’s pause and reflect: When did you know the pandemic was going to be really bad? That this would transform our lives? We realized our lives would never be the same again. And that was when the race started: We needed to quickly understand how to keep each other safe, how to care for patients with COVID-19, and how to prevent transmission of this awful virus. We rallied with the rest of our healthcare teams to care for patients. We knew we could do this!
And then, disillusionment hit. It was clear this was going to be an endurance race, not a sprint. We knew the disruptions we faced would be much larger and last much longer than we initially imagined.
It has been a long year—both personally and professionally. We have been challenged in untold ways. We have experienced loss in small ways, in large ways, and—perhaps in more cases than we might yet understand—in irreversible ways.
As vaccines became available in record time, it gave us hope. Now, we are entering a Reconstruction Phase.1 Setbacks will occur, but overall we are starting to come out of the pandemic.
Out of the chaos of the last year, many opportunities will be available for us as a profession, and we will create opportunities. How can we best take the lessons we have learned in this challenging time and apply them to the needs of our patients and the goals of our profession?
Change at high velocity
Change will continue to happen fast, at high velocity—and this can be the moment that defines a generation and our profession. The pandemic has amplified the value of the services we, as a pharmacy team, provide. Recent ASHP presidents have prepared us well for this moment by laying out some essential principles to guide us.
Lisa Gersema2 reminded us to remain true to our values.
Paul Bush3 advocated for a strong workforce and set the stage for ASHP’s priority to emphasize a resilient workforce.
Kelly Smith4 asked if we were “all in” for pharmacy. And if ever there was a moment to be all in, it’s now!
Kathy Pawlicki5 asked us to “never settle,” never settle for the sake of our patients and the profession.
And last year, Tom Johnson6 talked about transformation, emphasizing that we can’t just “embrace change”—but rather, we must now be ready to transform what we do.
And today, I am asking you to do all of this, and at high velocity.
The 3 imperatives
I believe we need to embrace 3 imperatives in the growth and development of our profession. The first is this: Take care of yourself, your family, and those with whom you work. Keeping pace with change, and the speed at which it occurs, is exhausting. And most days, it seems as though we are in a race. I encourage us all to slow down to keep up. I know it seems a bit of an oxymoron. We are caregivers and this is not easy. Sometimes it’s just a pause—15 seconds to take a deep breath. It is essential to rely on our values to guide and balance our home and family lives with our work lives. At work, let’s take an extra moment to check in with each other. We are all starved for connection. We must care for both our teams and our patients.
ASHP’s work has not slowed down during the pandemic. We are committed to supporting you in your practice. It has connected us to solve problems together. ASHP has emphasized well-being and resilience7 for several years, especially this last year. The National Academy of Medicine8 has an action collaborative on clinician resilience and well-being, and we are the only pharmacy organization that participates in it.
The second imperative is to transform your practice. We have adapted our practice at lightning speed to care for patients and deliver immunizations. We now have the chance to transform our practice. We need to ask: What do we want the lasting changes to be? First and foremost, we need to remember who we are. We are the medication experts. We want patients to get better faster. We are true, indispensable partners on the interprofessional care team. However, many of our organizations are struggling.
ASHP is here to give you the support you need to transform your practice by providing opportunities to share ideas. For almost 80 years, ASHP has been a champion for pharmacy practice advancement. Here are a few examples. We are stronger when we connect and collaborate with others who understand what we do. ASHP’s sections and forums are invaluable: They lead practice change. During my term on the Board, ASHP created 3 new sections (Specialty Pharmacy, Pharmacy Educators, and Community Pharmacy Practitioners) and launched the Technician Forum to serve our members better and foster additional leadership. Our sections and forums facilitate the transformation of our practice.
A recent report from ASHP’s Pharmacy Executive Leadership Alliance9-11 captures the strategies we should consider at this time. It urges us to reassess all program offerings, retain patients in our system, identify ways to increase revenue, and support the pharmacy enterprise through innovations in care delivery. The title of this report,10 “From Reconstruction to Reimagining,” captures the theme of our work. I urge you to read it.
Another example of ASHP’s leadership is the creation of the Task Force on Racial Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.12 It has developed 30 recommendations that provide specific guidance to ASHP. We are implementing the recommendations in a way that is enduring in everything we do. I am proud to lead us in implementing these charges.
The third imperative is: Shape the future of pharmacy and healthcare. An explosion of new opportunities will be created. The challenge is: Which opportunities should we pursue? We are fierce advocates for our patients and our profession as we lead healthcare change. Strong, impactful advocacy will be key.
I want to highlight our leadership in vaccine distribution. Tremendous strides occurred in developing COVID-19 vaccines. However, the pandemic has exposed many problems in our supply chain and in the equity of how we provide healthcare. ASHP anticipated these challenges and developed a set of principles13 for vaccine access that served as the template for many national organizations and federal agencies.
The pandemic also highlighted that pharmacists should be recognized as providers for our expanded roles on healthcare teams. It is a landmark in our profession that bipartisan bills14,15 recently introduced in the House and Senate would recognize pharmacists as providers, and critical primary caregivers, in the Medicare program. Our advocacy is critical to get these bills passed. Please, don’t ignore those ASHP Government Relations emails when you get them, especially right now!!
In addition, pharmacy technicians have embraced expanding roles and have opportunities to serve as providers in their own right. ASHP will continue to be the leader in advocating for the issues that matter most to us as health-system pharmacy teams.
Conclusion
In conclusion, new challenges are coming at us at high velocity, and that’s why the 3 imperatives are so important. To reiterate, the 3 imperatives are:
Take care of yourself, your family, and those with whom you work.
Transform your practice. This can happen by being engaged members and connecting with others.
Shape the future of pharmacy and healthcare. This can only happen through innovation and your advocacy efforts.
I’d like to thank some very generous people in my life. Thank you to the pharmacy team at the University of Utah Health. You are amazing, and this last year has shown how truly exceptional you are. I especially want to thank the leadership team I have had the honor to serve.
Thank you to the many residents with whom it has been my privilege to practice pharmacy. Residents challenge us and make us better. We would not be as strong as we are without our residents. I am so proud of you!
Thank you to the ASHP staff and to my colleagues and friends on the Board. We have the most talented staff and engaged board members. And, thanks to Amy and Tom for their help.
Thank you to my family—my two sisters, Sara and Cindy, my son and daughter, Ben and Katee, and their families. And thank you to my husband, Wayne, the most understanding, tolerant, generous, loving man on earth. We are all very close and have become even closer this last year. They are so encouraging and supportive.
I have my parents to thank as well. They instilled in me the values I cherish and a strong sense of integrity. On this day, my dad would have hugged me and told me how proud he was of me and what I had accomplished. Then, with his wry wit, he would remind me that he still didn’t really understand what I did most of the time as a pharmacist. And while he may not have understood exactly what I did, he knew I was passionate about my work and that I made a difference to the patients I served.
The recovery from the pandemic will be different for each of us. We face many changes both personally and in our practice. Our ability to shape our profession’s future has never been greater if we can engage in this high-velocity transformation. I am honored to serve as your President for this next year. I promise you: We are ready! ASHP is ready and here to support each of you. We will shape our profession, we will transform, and we will prevail in our never-ending effort to improve care for all those we serve. Thank you!
Acknowledgments
The author acknowledges the assistance of Amy Erickson and Tom Goodwin in the development of the address and the manuscript of this article.
Disclosures
The author has declared no potential conflicts of interest.
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