May 2021
As I prepared this last message to you as chair of the section, I reflected on what an exceptional past year this has been for all of us. The tenacity of our health care community has been exceptional! The commitment to battling COVID-19 and all of its related issues has been exhausting, yet the work and successes of our pharmacy teams has been inspirational.
Over the past twelve months I have made an effort to share perspectives and highlight the resources ASHP and the section had created to support our work in our health systems and communities. It is quite staggering when I looked back at how things unfolded. In the early part of my term, we were still managing a large number of COVID-19 cases and earnestly dealing with the financial repercussions to our organizations. The nation was grappling with how to heal and improve diversity, equity, and inclusion. We all then worked to operationalize massive vaccination efforts and health-system pharmacy leaders clearly demonstrated our expertise in building and supporting effective infrastructure to enable millions of doses to reach our employees and communities. Now we are digging deep to continue leading and looking forward to the recovery and reimaging of the future of healthcare with implementation of telehealth, adaptation to new models such as hospital at home, and picking up on initiatives put on hold over this past year. Most importantly, this has been a year of extraordinary people. Our pharmacy teams have become a shining light within our organizations as they have adapted, responded, and risen to challenges to ensure the best care for our patients.
I would like to take a moment to address a special group of extraordinary people … our section volunteers. Throughout the year, our section volunteers continued to meet routinely and develop resources, provide direction, provide advice, and provide collegial support. At each step of the way, they created resources for all of us in moments of urgency but also continued to build infrastructure for the information we need to move forward beyond COVID-19. The list of the many podcasts, virtual roundtables, webinars, and documents is too long to list them all. It has been nothing less than extraordinary!
Through our section volunteers and feedback from all of you, the Executive Committee is updating our strategic plan. There will be an increased emphasis on addressing the growth and innovation necessary for our pharmacy enterprises, the changes in culture to improve diversity, equity, and inclusion, and the infrastructure to support leadership development.
Serving as chair of the Section of Pharmacy Practice Leaders has been a great honor. As I look to the future, the section is in excellent hands under the leadership of incoming chair, Jeff Little. Our work is a team effort, and I want to recognize the contributions of all Executive Committee members, including Immediate Past Chair Sam Calabrese, and Directors-at-Large Lindsey Amerine, Lindsey Kelley, and Mark Sullivan. Also, special thanks to our board liaison Kristy Butler. Finally, I would like to recognize David Chen. For those of you who know David, he is someone who has a talent to connect others, think strategically, and make those around him look good. A large contributor to our success this past year has been the support, mentorship and guidance David provided to myself and many of you around the country. It has been a rewarding experience for me working with this outstanding executive team and I would like to thank all of our members for trusting me with this position. I look forward to what the future holds and how we can further advance the profession of pharmacy for years to come.
Kindest regards,
Philip Brummond, Pharm.D., M.S., FASHP
Chair, Section of Pharmacy Practice Leaders (2020-2021)
[email protected]