Triple threat: SOP-Daily Planet team garners three HRSA awards
VCU School of Pharmacy, in collaboration with the Richmond-based Daily Planet Health Care for the Homeless Clinic, received three awards during the Health Resources and Services Administration Patient Safety and Clinical Pharmacy Services Collaborative, Learning Session 4, this fall in Dallas.
Only five of 68 teams won three awards at the collaborative, which was sponsored by the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services’ HRSA and the 340B Prime Vendor Program.
HRSA established the PSPC to ensure that health care delivered by safety net providers is the best and safest in the nation. It builds on HRSA’s ongoing chronic disease and organ donation collaboratives and responds to a number of health concerns: the rising incidence of chronic diseases, adverse drug events as a leading cause of death and injury, the need to coordinate care across all care providers and the need to integrate clinical pharmacy services into the patient health home model.
The teams selected to be part of the PSPC 1.0 were charged with integrating evidence-based clinical pharmacy services and building provider knowledge of pharmacist-provided care. Individual team goals included maintaining continuity of care among all providers and community partners, and increasing patient access to pharmacy services.
The VCU School of Pharmacy-Daily Planet PSPC team comprises six members. Representing VCU School of Pharmacy – all of whom are Pharm.D.s — are team leader Sharon Gatewood, assistant professor; Akash Alexander, assistant professor; Jean-Venable “Kelly” Goode, professor; Amy Kennedy, Community Participatory Research Fellow; Gary Matzke, associate dean for clinical research and public policy; and Leticia Moczygemba, assistant professor. Daily Planet representatives are Robert Osborn (MSW), behavioral health coordinator; Judy Parker-Falzoi (FNP), clinic administrator; and Dianne Reynolds-Cane (MD), medical director.
The Daily Planet, a nonprofit, 501(c)3 charitable organization founded in 1969, has a stated mission of strengthening and enriching the lives of people who are homeless, potentially homeless or lacking the social, emotional and financial resources to create stable lifestyles.” It provides primary health care to those who experience homelessness, uninsured and underinsured, as well as free eye care, dental care, mental health and psychiatric care, substance abuse services, case management, laundry and shower facilities and mail services to those in need.
As part of a community engagement project, the School of Pharmacy has been working with the Daily Planet HCH Clinic to help patients better manage their medications and chronic disease via medication reviews, education and collaboration with other health-care providers. In July 2008, a team of clinical pharmacists from the school were selected, along with the Daily Planet, to participate in HRSA’s PSPC 1.0.
Using an action-learning system designed to rapidly improve patient outcomes and patient safety, multidisciplinary teams of HRSA-supported health-care providers and their community-based partners across the nation – such as VCU School of Pharmacy and the Daily Planet – worked during the yearlong program to improve the quality of health care to the patients they serve. Through an intensive series of Learning Sessions and Action Periods, PSPC 1.0 teams learned the leading, evidence-based practices from expert national faculty — and from each other as teams progressed.
Following its yearlong participation in PSPC 1.0, the VCU School of Pharmacy/Daily Planet team was recognized with three awards:
- The Health Outcome Management Award recognized teams that successfully gathered patient health outcomes data during the collaborative and reported health outcomes measures for at least nine to 10 consecutive months. Teams receiving this award also were required to demonstrate that data was used to improve patient care.
- The Clinical Pharmacy Services Improvement Award recognized teams that have successfully installed clinical pharmacy services since the beginning of the collaborative and that were able to demonstrate improvement in one area of service. For the purpose of the PSPC, “clinical pharmacy services” include any services provided to ensure the appropriate selection and utilization of medications.
- The Life Saving Patient Safety Award recognized teams that established systems and processes for detecting, identifying and preventing adverse drug events, or harm caused by medication use. Teams also had to provide evidence that they were able to identify one potentially life-threatening adverse drug event and resolve the situation.
The PSPC is now in its second year, PSPC 2.0. The primary goal of this second phase is to continue the rapid spread of the leading practices found most effective in improving patient safety and health outcomes. PSPC 2.0 will build on lessons learned during the first year and expand the work done in the first year to a larger scale with greater impact.
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