Advocate Health, a system with 68 hospitals across six states, recently surveyed its pharmacists to uncover areas of improvement and differences in opinion, according to the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists.
To care for nearly 6 million patients every year, the system employs about 3,700 pharmacists, the ASHP wrote in a July 30 article. Roughly half of this workforce answered the survey, and from those responses, Advocate selected 28 delegates to refine statements for pharmacy's pillars of practice.
Kersten Weber Tatarelis, PharmD, Advocate's vice president of enterprise clinical pharmacy operations, said the health system is focused on three pillars: innovative models of clinical care delivery, transitions in care and clinical decision support.
The Charlotte, N.C.-based organization is the ninth-largest health system in the U.S., according to 2023 data.
After recent expansions, "the pharmacy leadership team recognized that much of the team had never met before, so it would be imperative for us to come together, philosophically and physically, as one department across our enterprise," Dr. Weber Tatarelis told the ASHP.
After the delegates met in late January, the attendees recommended 21 patient-centered guiding statements.
The themes included "advancing innovative models of clinical services delivery; extending expertise across the enterprise; reducing care variation; developing efficiency and reducing redundant work; optimizing and standardizing transitions of care; and clinical decision support to facilitate practice model changes," the ASHP said.
Dr. Weber Tatarelis said leaders have woven these action items into their strategic plans.
This project focused on Advocate's pharmacy team's acute care, ambulatory care and population health services, and the system is planning to soon examine a strategic vision for retail pharmacy services and the role of pharmacy technicians, the article said.