ASHP Announces Progress on Practice Model Measurements

PRESS RELEASE

2/6/2014-- The Pharmacy Practice Model Initiative (PPMI), a joint project of the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists (ASHP) and the ASHP Foundation, is making progress in its efforts to transform how pharmacists care for patients. The PPMI National Dashboard, which measures progress on key PPMI goals through the ASHP National Survey, shows significant and steady improvement on many of the targets.

The PPMI National Dashboard measures progress over time on five key PPMI goals, with 26 individual measures that make up the scorecard. The scorecard is updated annually with data from ASHP’s National Survey of Pharmacy Practice in Hospital Settings. The score for each goal reported on the dashboard is a composite measure, reflecting several individual measures.

All five goals showed improvements over the previous year, with the most significant advancement in Goal 4, “Using automation and technology by pharmacy departments to improve patient safety and improve efficiency.” The composite score for this goal is 60.5 percent, rising from 52.7 percent in 2012 and 43.9 percent in 2011, the first year data were reported.

Other improvements include:

• Goal 1: pharmacist roles, practices, and activities will improve medication use and optimize medication-related outcomes (64.5 percent). This represents an increase from 60 percent in 2012 and 58.6 percent in 2011.
• Goal 2: Pharmacy technicians will prepare and distribute medications and perform other functions that do not require a pharmacist’s professional judgment (18.3 percent). This represents an increase from 17.4 percent in 2011.
• Goal 3: Pharmacists and pharmacy technicians will have appropriate training and credentials for the activities performed within their scope of practice (26.8 percent). This represents an increase from 23.8 percent in 2011.
• Goal 5: Pharmacists will demonstrate leadership in exercising their responsibility for medication-use systems and will be accountable for medication-related patient outcomes (48.4 percent). This represents an increase from 46.7 percent in 2012.

“This steady improvement over last year’s data demonstrates that PPMI is making a real difference in empowering the pharmacy team to take responsibility for patient outcomes,” said Douglas Scheckelhoff, M.S., FASHP, vice president, ASHP Office of Practice Advancement. “This steady improvement, even when incremental, shows the power of what the pharmacy team can accomplish through this initiative.”

PPMI is now expanding into its planned next phase of ambulatory care practice, with a consensus summit to be held at the ASHP Ambulatory Care Conference and Summit, March 3-4, in Dallas. The summit will develop goals and recommendations to transform the pharmacy practice model in the ambulatory care setting.

More information about PPMI can be found at www.ashp.org/ppmi.