ASHP Member to Help NQF Guide Med Management Measures

10/22/2008

As a member of the steering committee of the new National Voluntary Consensus Standards for Medication Management, Carmichael, the pharmacy executive at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Veterans Integrated Service Network in Reno, Nev., will work with a spectrum of healthcare stakeholders who will help identify measures that assess medication decision-making, medication use and appropriateness, and monitoring.

The measures should address the quality of medication management provided by pharmacists, clinicians and healthcare professionals working under Medicare Part D and other health plans, according to NQF.

The Society nominated Carmichael for the post and plans to engage other Society members in the project.

Carmichael has expertise in using performance measures to improve drug therapy management for more than 20,000 patients who receive care in six medical centers in northern Nevada, northern California, and Hawaii. She is also noted for her innovative work with quality metrics that incorporate information technology and population-based outcomes data using the VA’s clinical data warehouse, a state-of-the-art database that includes real-time transactional clinical data.

Carmichael was featured in an article in ASHP’s winter 2008 edition of InterSections. In a story that spotlighted federal pharmacists, Carmichael spoke about the cutting-edge care at the VA.

An inaugural member of NQF, ASHP serves on NQF’s Health Professionals Council and has sought to influence all NQF projects dealing with medication management.

Watch ashp.org for updates on Carmichael’s work on the committee.