The American Society of Health-System Pharmacists recently named six hospitals as centers of excellence for their medication use safety and pharmacy practice. The pharmacy leaders at these facilities shared with Becker's their keys to earning the three-year accreditation:
Charles E. Daniels, PhD. Chief Pharmacy Officer of UC San Diego Health and Associate Dean of Professional Practice of UC San Diego's pharmacy school: We submitted our materials, had a weeklong on-site survey by five or six surveyors. They gave the recommendation for our certification. We probably had, easily, 500 pages worth of materials we submitted.
I'm going to brag a little bit, but I know there are a lot of other places that do some or many of the same things we're currently doing. We've done over 20 years of quests for doing everything that sets us at the front of the pack of pharmacy departments at health systems. We had been on this quest for a long long time. Once we saw this standard, it seemed like a legitimate test for whether or not we were on the road to be one of the elite pharmacy departments in the country.
UC San Diego [pursued the certificate because] this is the first time I have seen a standard that looks for excellence across the entire department. It allows for everyone in the department to be involved; it's not like one or two people get a project, it's not like a handful worked on something. Everybody was expected to participate. … The entire medical center was involved, got engaged and was excited when we were recognized. This was an award for everybody.
Kate Farthing, PharmD. Inpatient Pharmacy Manager of Legacy Salmon Creek Medical Center (Vancouver, Wash.): [Of the hospitals that achieved the certificate], we're the only one that's a community hospital. We're a 220-bed community hospital that's part of a health system. The other [ASHP-certified hospitals] are much larger facilities and one is an academic medical center.
The ASHP wanted to test and make sure the standard could be applied, and hospitals of a variety of sizes could achieve recognition as a center of excellence. Even though I'm a 220-bed hospital, I'm held to the same standard as UC San Diego, which is a much larger academic center.
We have an amazing culture. We're always striving to become better in terms of quality and safety and efficiency. Having an external source come in and take a thorough look at how we do our business from distribution of product to clinical services with inpatient and outpatient services, and offering areas of improvement allows us to become better.
Denise Scarpelli, PharmD. Vice President and Chief Pharmacy Officer of the University of Chicago Medicine, which achieved certification for its Center for Care and Discovery Hospital, Comer Children's Hospital and Mitchell Hospital: UChicago Medicine has a culture of striving for excellence, and after reading the standards to achieve the ASHP center of excellence, the pharmacy team knew we could achieve it. The certification was a way for us to demonstrate the great quality care we provide our patients and communities we serve.
The ASHP application covers all areas of pharmacy from inpatient to outpatient; we provide all aspects of pharmacy at UChicago Medicine. However, the one area that stood out is the pharmacy clinical services we provide our patients. ASHP was impressed that pharmacy is part of all clinical areas.
Greg Teale, PharmD. Vice President of Pharmacy Services of Saint Luke's Health System (Kansas City, Mo.): The ASHP Center of Excellence focuses on how organizations collect and utilize data to improve patient care. Saint Luke's Hospital of Kansas City has a history of being recognized for its quality and patient safety and has received the Baldrige and Missouri Quality awards as well as Magnet designation. The pharmacy team wanted an opportunity to demonstrate the programs and processes we have established to improve medication outcomes.
Our pharmacists, pharmacy technicians, residents and students are the foundation of our program. We work hard developing and maintaining a culture of quality and safety by collaborating with members of the healthcare team. We have an extraordinarily high number of residency trained, board-certified pharmacists. The surveyors observed and commented on how engaged our entire team is in developing goals and initiatives for the department and health system.