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Official Newsjournal of the Illinois Council of Health-System Pharmacists

President's Message
Making Your Impact Last

by Noelle Chapman, PharmD, BCPS, FASHP - ICHP President - Vice President, Pharmacy Operations - Advocate Aurora Health

As this is my final message to you as President, please indulge me in being a bit reflective over the past year. We started this year by asking ourselves if we were ready to truly have an IMPACT on patients, practice, and the next generation. The ICHP Board and Division Directors responded with a resounding “Yes!” and began working to take that purpose and translate it into specific actions regarding engagement, advocacy, and sustainability. Some key achievements so far this year include:

The Educational Affairs and Marketing Affairs Divisions have been encompassing technician and New Practitioner needs to address member engagement (ICHP currently has the highest technician membership of all time!)
There has been consistent participation in the Collaborative Pharmaceutical Task Force meetings (a committee whose aim is to provide recommendations regarding the rewriting of the Pharmacy Practice Act due by the end of this year) and the Government Affairs Division has been diligently tackling legislative issues through our new lobbyists to ensure we are addressing the advocacy needs and concerns of our membership.
An Executive Vice President Search Committee is currently working to make sure we have a sustainable plan for the leadership of our organization.

There are many more actions I will not take the time to call out (please see Division reports for details) but suffice it to say that the IMPACT we set out to have is well underway!
Given this direction, we have also been able to contemplate how we can do a little spring cleaning to provide space for us to continue to grow and develop as an organization and a profession. An IMPACT is essential to start the process, but it is just as important to take the direction provided by the IMPACT and ensure it is sustainable. I have been thinking a lot lately about viability. Viability is the ability to survive or live successfully. This is important when you want your IMPACT to live on, knowing it needs to be nimble and adjust to whatever is coming your way.

We live in an era where health reigns. Athleisure rules our clothing choices, our diets are driven by freedom from something (be it gluten, dairy, or sugar), and our watches remind us to stand and breathe and move. What a wonderful space to take our IMPACT on health and make it viable. We IMPACT patients by engaging them through practicing patient-centered medicine, but our viability is in connecting patients to their health. Fighting for legislation for pharmacists and pharmacy technicians is a forum to IMPACT practice, but viability comes in that legislation being visionary. We IMPACT the strength of our organization through our leaders, but viability comes from cultivating sustainable involvement in the next generation of practitioners. This viability is what ensures the health of our profession and ultimately our patients!

As I sit here writing this in my yoga pants, drinking Diet Coke, and recording my heart rate on my Apple watch, I am confident in the collective IMPACT of ICHP and our viability. However, the key to this viability is you. Which of the above activities holds meaning for you? What are we not doing that you think is valuable? Whether it is a monetary donation to the PAC, your presence at a meeting, becoming a Champion, or volunteering your time and energy through an affiliate, division, or network, the reality is that ICHP is nothing without YOU. You make us ready, determine our purpose, help us grow and are the heart of our viability. YOU make the IMPACT.