President's Message - The Year in Review

by Linda Fred, ICHP President
October 9, 2015

A few weeks ago, I ended my term as President and joined the ranks of the Past Presidents Club. I want to take a few minutes to reflect on the accomplishments of the organization over the last year and thank the many people who helped us complete another successful year.

We had two excellent meetings under the exemplary leadership of our Division Chair for Educational Affairs, Travis Hunerdosse. They found topics around my presidential theme of collaboration including many successful examples of collaborative practice and culminating in one of our keynote addresses at the Annual Meeting about experiences in team-based care at East Tennessee State University – presented by Dr. Reid Blackwelder and Dr. L. Brian Cross. Both meetings were full of examples of pharmacists working in group practices in ambulatory settings and inpatient team-based rounding services. These sessions provided a lot of information about collaboration opportunities available to all of us in our respective practice sites.

Our Government Affairs Division was very busy this year. Our Director, Kathryn Schultz, did a phenomenal job of keeping us informed on legislative activity and helping to develop ICHP’s position on a wide variety of topics, including the Heroin Task Force, Technician Continuing Education, “Right to Try” legislation, Medical Cannabis Rules evolution, Biosimilars, and Provider Status. They also worked on a response to the proposed USP 800 Rules.

Carrie Vogler and our Marketing Affairs Division continued to look for innovative ways to meet our members’ needs. They updated our Champions Brochure to better represent the important role our ICHP Champions play in actively engaging our members, and they added an ICHP Bucks incentive to the Champions program. They also created a new award category for our Annual Awards Presentation. We presented our first ever Technician of the Year Award to Margie Villareal-Flores, a drug information technician at UIC Hospital, at our Annual Meeting in September. They are working on initiating an Ambulatory Care Network, as well.

The Division of Organizational Affairs does a lot of a less glamorous but still necessary work of keeping the organization alive and well (and I can safely say that part about less glamorous as a former Chair of that Division myself). This year, Kathy Komperda and her team worked on some revisions of the ICHP Bylaws and assisted NISHP in revising theirs. That Division is also responsible for working with our Student Chapters to ensure they have appropriate governing documents.

I started to go back and count up all the Position Statements reviewed or developed by our Professional Affairs Division, under the leadership of Desi Kotis – but there were a LOT! So I’ll just leave it at that. There were a lot. I do also want to recognize that they do a tremendous amount of work behind the scenes in identifying and sharing best practices. I would also be remiss if I didn’t mention that Desi was my selection for this year’s President’s Award. Desi, in addition to all her work with the Professional Affairs Division and many years of active participation in NISHP as well as ASHP, is also a strong mentor to her many students, residents, and staff – and a role model for us all. 

I need to recognize the rest of the Executive Committee for all their efforts this year. I have appreciated the input of our Immediate Past President, Mike Fotis, and our President-elect, Jennifer Phillips. Thanks to Ginger Ertel as Treasurer and Charlene Hope as Secretary for the organization. Those people – along with our staff – created a strong Executive Team that helped the organization stay on the strong course set by our predecessors.

I would like to recognize the remainder of the Board of Directors for the year. There is a small army of Regional Directors, and Committee Chairs, and Network Chairs, and Student Chapter Reps, and the Tech Rep. It truly takes a village.

Finally – thank you to all our staff at the ICHP Office. They are a tremendously dedicated group of people who have the best interests of the organization and the profession in their hearts and their heads.

My presidential theme for the year was collaboration. Last month, my KeePosted article was about collaboration gone wrong. This, my last KeePosted article is about collaboration done right – the ICHP leadership, our Divisions and Committees, and our members. If you are interested in getting more involved in one of these roles, please reach out to an existing leader or the office staff. I am confident it will be for you another example of excellent collaboration in your professional life just as it has been for me.

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