Marcia L. Buck, Pharm.D., FCCP, FPPAG, BCPPS
In the January President’s Column, I discussed the ACCP’s process of updating the organization’s strategic plan. At that time, the board was collating and analyzing input from more than 1000 members who had completed one of ACCP’s planning surveys or participated in a focus group at the College’s 2016 Annual Meeting. Additional refinement by the ACCP staff, together with sessions at the board’s February meeting in Jacksonville and its May meeting in Kansas City, culminated in final approval of the 2017 strategic plan. The new plan is now available on the ACCP website.
The 2017 strategic plan is based on ACCP’s overarching purpose to help clinical pharmacists best serve patients and society. The focus remains the same as for the 2013 strategic plan: to develop, advance, and position clinical pharmacists to fully contribute their unique expertise to the care of the patients they serve. The plan sets forth the steps ACCP has established to achieve its goals within each of these priority areas. Although the College’s purpose and focus have remained consistent, its priorities continue to change according to the issues affecting clinical pharmacists. These issues were identified through both member input and the environmental scans conducted by the board and staff. The first critical issue addresses professional development. Strategic directions for this critical issue include programs to help members expand their clinical practice skills, develop knowledge and skills in precision medicine, and acquire the foundational knowledge needed to pursue clinical pharmacy/practice-based research. Anticipated steps that will address this critical issue include delivering interprofessional educational programs for clinical specialists, using novel mechanisms to provide professional development curricula, and introducing clinical traineeships in focused practice areas, pharmacogenomics-driven precision medicine, and research.
The second critical issue addresses advancing clinical pharmacists in their roles as patient care providers, educators, and researchers. Strategic directions include supporting the implementation of comprehensive medication management (CMM) as an essential component of medication optimization. Work in this area will focus on assessing the learnings from the ACCP-funded CMM study and developing resources for clinical pharmacists that will facilitate CMM implementation. Other strategic directions concentrate on enhancing the growth and evolution of clinical pharmacy worldwide as well as initiating several new projects to promote the development of future clinical pharmacy leaders. The College anticipates that these strategic directions will result in new ACCP Academy programming, a clinical pharmacist leadership sabbatical experience, and perhaps an executive fellowship in clinical pharmacy for recent PGY1 or PGY2 residency graduates wishing to pursue clinical leadership positions or careers in professional/scientific societies.
The final critical issue—positioning clinical pharmacists to fully contribute to patient care—will be addressed through a wide range of objectives. The strategic directions for this issue will complement those described previously, such as developing an ACCP position statement on the value of clinical pharmacists in medication optimization that highlights the results of the CMM study both within the profession and beyond and expanding practice and research opportunities for clinical pharmacists through engagement and collaboration with provider, payer, and research organizations. Several objectives within these strategic directions call for expanding the number of ACCP members serving as authors or panel members on clinical practice guidelines, consensus statements, NIH study sections, or similar projects, which will in turn influence the future of patient care. This will include identifying members with expertise in specific areas of practice, education, or research; forming a training program for those seeking to become involved in this work; and creating mechanisms to link ACCP members with these opportunities.
The plan’s objectives are designed to be accomplished over the next 2–3 years. To be successful, we will need the combined efforts of our membership, whether by holding office, participating in committees, or serving as speakers, presenters, mentors, and recruiters. The other board members and I look forward to working with you to transform the plan’s goals and objectives into tangible outcomes.