Health & Wellness
The American Society of Health-System Pharmacists (ASHP) recently selected Memorial Hospital to receive the “2018 ASHP Best Practices Award.” Memorial was selected based on the organization’s integrated, comprehensive approach for providing medication therapy and chronic disease management.
The highly competitive award is granted annually to a maximum of six healthcare systems that have implemented major innovations in pharmaceutical care for patients, resulting in improvements in quality, safety, and clinical outcomes.
Past award winners represent healthcare systems in the United States and from around the world. “It is thrilling to be selected for this prestigious national award,” comments Chip Hubbs, Memorial CEO and President. “Winning this award is particularly special because of the stiff competition it draws every year. In fact, almost all past award winners have come from large tertiary-care teaching hospital systems. Memorial is only the second community hospital to win this award in the past 20 years. We are extremely proud of our highly talented pharmacy team – they continue to demonstrate an unrelenting commitment to raising the bar for improving the quality of care and patient clinical outcomes.”
Award evaluators selected Memorial because of the best practice approach used for managing medications and chronic diseases in an integrated fashion. Results over the past several years have shown significantly improved clinical outcomes over both the short and long term. The pharmacy’s medication/disease management services assist patients with solving medication and lifestyle challenges leading to improved health outcomes. The model developed by the Memorial Hospital Pharmacy features
- Medication Therapy/Chronic Disease Management Clinics
- Placement of clinical pharmacists in primary care practices
- Transitions of Care Services that eliminate gaps in care as patients move within the healthcare system and from health facilities to home. Patients are managed by clinical pharmacist-nurse practitioner-pharmacy technician teams.
Britt Cummins, Director of Pharmacy, and Craig Baker, Clinical Pharmacist, received the Best Practices Award at the ASHP Midyear Clinical Meeting in early December. They were also featured presenters on medication therapy management during the conference, ASHP’s largest gathering of health professionals, with more than 25,000 in attendance.
