Health Care Organizations Join Forces to Offer National Learning Collaborative

PRESS RELEASE

The Alliance for Integrated Medication Management (AIMM); Apexus, the HRSA-designated Prime Vendor for the 340B Drug Pricing Program; and ASHP (American Society of Health-System Pharmacists) have joined forces to offer the 2017-2018 National A3 Collaborative, a leading-edge learning collaborative that offers healthcare providers support to accelerate the implementation of sustainable comprehensive medication management (CMM) services.

Launching this spring, the A3 Collaborative is a yearlong learning experience designed to help healthcare providers and organizations succeed in the new era of value-based payment programs. The A3 Collaborative will support participating organizations in making CMM a critical part of their strategic business plan, as well as their responses to the larger, quality strategy reform for value-based care programs evolving within healthcare medical models.

“AIMM supports a number of learning collaboratives with a common goal to spread adoption of team-based comprehensive medication management services into the care of high-risk, high-cost patients. Participants in the A3 Collaborative will receive AIMM’s proven action learning method, which incorporates effective leadership skills and quality improvement practices to help organizations rapidly identify strategies to build, improve processes, and deliver CMM services,” explained Todd Sorensen, Executive Director, AIMM. “Over a 12-month learning period, organizations develop a performance story, that is, they are able to show evidence-based results that support strategic business conversations with executive leaders and payers to show the value of CMM.”

A3 Collaborative participants will have access to resources and tools to build the business case for an effective CMM strategy focusing on improved health outcomes, better patient care, and cost-effectiveness. Organizations will identify a CMM initiative to work on throughout the collaborative year. Each organization will form an implementation team responsible for achieving this initiative. Teams will consist of an interprofessional group of clinicians, administration, and other frontline staff in pursuit of integrating CMM services across their care delivery system, with demonstrative results.

A program development coach provides individualized support to each team for technical assistance and consultancy. In addition, teams have networking opportunities with national peers and access to best practice models for replication through monthly A3 Collaborative webinar events.

“ASHP is pleased to collaborate with AIMM and Apexus on this important initiative to help advance healthcare and improve medication use through the leadership and engagement of pharmacists,” said Paul W. Abramowitz, Pharm.D., Sc.D. (Hon), FASHP. “ASHP members are working on interprofessional teams in all settings, including ambulatory clinics, and are doing so many important things on behalf of their patients. The A3 Collaborative provides a wonderful opportunity for them to take their practices to the next level.”

Scholarship funding is available to offset a portion of the costs of participating in the learning collaborative. “Apexus has a long history of supporting the medication-related quality improvement efforts of 340B-eligible entities. Achieving affordability of medications is only one part of the equation that will achieve desired health outcomes. Ensuring appropriate and effective use of medications must follow, and that requires integration of the expertise of pharmacists into care teams,” said Chris Hatwig, President of Apexus. “This can all be achieved through participation in national collaboratives, which is why we find it so important to support this A3 Collaborative.”

A limited number of scholarships are available, and the deadline to apply for the A3 Collaborative is March 31, 2017. After that date, scholarship funding will be provided on a rolling enrollment to organizations that demonstrate a commitment to advancing CMM services. For more information, download the detailed participation package.

The application process to join the 2017/2018 National A3 Collaborative is now open. For questions, email info@aimmweb.org.