John McMillan 0:00
Great Hi, welcome to stop start continue a reconciliation of the pharmacy industry sponsored by the medical memory. Thank you for joining us today. We look forward to providing you with quick thoughts from leaders across pharmacy to improve outcomes for patients. Make sure you follow us on LinkedIn and listen to stop, start continue wherever you get your podcast. Right now, in each episode, we're going to talk with top pharmacy thinkers and delve into what they feel needs to stop what needs to start happening and what needs to continue has to be best practices. From their point of view. You'll hear from industry leaders from all practice sites from retail to health systems FQHCs, especially pharmacy, noted regulatory experts and patient safety advocates. We will get their thoughts on what is driving pharmacy forward and what is holding us back from even greater heights. My name is John McMullen. For the past 20 years I've been supported pharmacy practice for inpatient remote retail, specialty pharmacies across different practice settings, health systems, FQHCs, retail independence and specialty pharmacies. My co host is Julie from the medical memory. It's a video education program that elevates the patient experience increases medication adherence, and drives better patient outcomes. On this episode of stops are continuing. We're joined by Dr. Al Carter, Executive Director of the NAACP, the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy. welcome Alex, great to see you again. How's to start a fall bend for you busy? I'm sure. It's
Al Carter 1:24
always busy, John, and thank you for having me. I look forward to this conversation. But it's it's been busy, but it's better than not being busy.
John McMillan 1:33
That's right. I think the last time we spoke you were you were about to jump into a bunch of meetings with different state boards. So I'm sure there's great conversations happening from there. And with that as a jumping off point, what do you see as something that, you know, from your point of view, really, we need to put some to stop and put the brakes on and really to improve our practice across the different sites that we all
Al Carter 1:54
hit? I think First John, as far as stopping there. There's a lot of negative press on pharmacists today in pharmacy, as we look at working conditions and some of the challenges with workforce challenge with workforce shortages that are affecting all healthcare professionals, specifically, pharmacists. What that has done, though, is that has led many pharmacists and others to to advocate against pharmacy for future pharmacists. So we need to stop telling students, those in college Joe's getting ready for pharmacy school to not go into pharmacy school, because it's going to lead to further shortages and further challenges in health care. That doesn't benefit anyone. What we're dealing with now with working conditions and somebody shortages. We're working to working through to address both regulation, working with different pharmacy associations, what have you. Well, we can't address this is people telling or saying negative things about pharmacists, when pharmacists have stepped up to the plate for COVID When pharmacists have stepped up to the plate for h one n one, any type of pandemic epidemic, any, you know, opioid use disorders, you know, stepping up to the plate they're like pharmacists are always there were always it's kind of like I had a statement that was told to me where it says pharmacists are like are like fire extinguishers. And emergency says break glass in case of emergency. We need pharmacists break glass and that's what you know federal government has done for COVID That's what we're doing right now to provide access more accessible access to opioid use disorder treatments and what have you. So stop, stop telling individuals to not go to pharmacy school and not become pharmacists. It is a great profession. It is a great career. I've been doing this for over 20 years. And I love my job. I love what I do. I love advocating for pharmacy. So continue to do so stop doing that so we can move.
John McMillan 3:54
That's a great point now, you know, and and you're right, there's there's so much value that the pharmacy and pharmacists bring to patients and communities that they serve. Right. I mean, there's people are much more trusting of the pharmacists and pharmacies and see them on a more regular basis than any other part of the healthcare, you know, continuum. So it's really important that we keep bringing those the new folks into the profession and making sure that they are, you know, providing the same level of customer and patient care that, that, you know, we've all been used to, right because and you're right, this is a great industry to be part of, I'm lucky enough to be part of it, you know, for the past 20 years or so. And so I really, I really appreciate the fact that you're saying hey, let's let's remind ourselves what a great profession This is. And for those folks that really want to help patients and improve their their community health, you know, to come on in, it's a great place to be it's wonderful. Awesome. So with that being said, what's what's one thing that you think we should start doing more of including advocating for our profession,
Al Carter 4:57
and I think that's the most important thing is like we need to educate. And we haven't you know, there's a lot of pharmacy Association we've been talking about this, we need to educate the public on what pharmacists do. The capability pharmacists have, what pharmacists can do with with, with an interdisciplinary team in practice and health care and providing quality health care, and we need to do so not just during emergencies, but all the time. And how do we educate the patient? How do we educate the general public, you know, 95% of the general population live within three to five miles of a pharmacy. And so the capabilities and access and opportunities to to have health care and quality health care provided to them is at your pharmacy. And many know that but many more don't. And so we need to start advocating and promoting pharmacy to the general public and showing just how pharmacists and your pharmacy staff can help and assist in their healthcare needs. Yeah, you
Julie Soukup 5:59
know, it's so interesting that you even say that, because working within a lot of hospitals, medical memory was originally originated, originated more in surgery centers, doctors, clinical spaces, and it's so interesting, leaning more and learning more about it, every single one of those patients are also touched by pharmacy touched out by beds to meds. And so for some of our hospitals that started leaning into this is this huge resource, this is what you have available to you, I had no idea. Even that capacity, it was like, Okay, great. Here's my surgeon, that's all I need. I we're done, and I'm discharged. But being able to have different, you know, tools and resources to even provide these hospitals say, hey, just, we don't know, most, most patients, most of your average person does not know the capacity and what's available, and even a lot of the, you know, free education and resources that they can get about, you know, what they're taking, what they're not taking, and all of that. So, absolutely, I think that's one thing that even I've noticed and learned a lot from, you know, as far as how often that's being touched in every speciality, you know, I'd
Al Carter 7:04
be shocked to hear any doctor, nurse physician, Assistant nurse practitioner, that doesn't have a pharmacist that they go to, for medical advice for medication advice. I hear it all the time. From physicians, I don't know what I would do without my pharmacist or the pharmacists or my interdisciplinary team. And so, you know, other health care professionals? No, it's just the general public doesn't necessarily know. So how do we educate them as well, in not just wait till, you know, there's some pandemic or other emergency where it's like, Alright, I'm gonna go to pharmacists, this is only thing is still gonna see what they can help us with and go from there. A lot of relationships for patients with primary care providers, or with other health care professionals to start from them going to the pharmacist. Yeah. And so that's, you know, understanding just the value that they can bring in promoting, that is something we need to start and we need to do a better job of,
John McMillan 7:58
right. Yeah, absolutely. Right. I mean, it's incredible how much the pharmacy teams in every practice site impact patient care and improve patient outcomes. Right. So, and that's what we're all here for. Right? That whole, the whole group of health care professionals is the goal is to make that patient better, right. So getting a better outcome and, and we're really the pharmacy is really at the center with the rest of the professional saying, hey, let's take care of this, and get these patients on their way into a better place. For sure. So, so we've talked about, you know, stop negative advocacy, start educating the public about, you know, hey, this is really an important part of the team. And let's let's get away from, you know, kind of the crisis mode of getting the pharmacies involved. So what's one thing that we're doing right now that you think is a great thing we need to continue, and probably do more of pharmacists
Al Carter 8:48
continue to step up to the plate when asked to do something. So we started off if you think about an h1 in one and 2010 2011 pharmacists, really then many states started moving to allow pharmacists to provide immunizations, and then started to only adults. With COVID. We've been providing immunizations now to babies, you know, individuals three and above. We've also started doing point of care testing, so testing for flu test and treat for flu test and treat for strep throat tests and treat for COVID. We pharmacists continue to step up to the plate to do what is necessary to treat that patient. You look at the passage of the Mad x at a mainstream Addiction Treatment Act. So now pharmacists are entering into the space with substance use disorders, opioid use disorders, to provide assistance and to provide treatment there. So we need to continue to show to show our value and continue to do these types of efforts in the healthcare space because we know that there's huge shortages across the whole healthcare spectrum, and it's going to take a team to be able to provide that quality and patient specific care to each patient and make Sure it's individualized to meet this patient's needs. And so we just got to continue to step up to the plate to provide those services, and not shy away from doing those. Or hesitate from doing them. Because we are trained, we are educated and have the capability to do all the services provide even more. Right?
John McMillan:
10:17
That's a great point. And, you know, again, we're in our pharmacy syllabus every week, every month, at a minimum, right. So we're already there, we've already got, you know, I mean, I got my flu shot at my local CVS, right, and it was easy to get mine. So it was great, right, and, you know, there's all kinds of those services in a, in a healthcare environment where they're trusted professionals, and people know, I'm gonna get great service there because, you know, it's, it's easy again, to do that, and it's a lot easier to get an appointment with the pharmacy than it is with a lot of primary care.
Al Carter:
10:52
We shouldn't have to wait until you know, it gets to a point where patients go into emergency room, where health care costs are, you know, so much higher, it can be done by talking to pharmacists, and when you have symptoms where we have conditioned, because there are many ways that pharmacists can help and should just continue to step up to the plate to, to talk to the patient to educate them on, you know, their conditions in ways that that they can help themselves but then also ways that pharmacists or others can help and providing different services, whether it's a health care, clinic screening, whatever the case may be, to provide this service to help that patient live their best life.
John McMillan:
11:31
Right? That's awesome. Well, I appreciate those insights. You know, Alan, and as always, you know, your your, your ability to kind of bring us all to a couple of really good places and help us understand what we can do. To stop start to continue making our profession better is really amazing. So thank you again, we appreciate it. You know that a wrap up this edition of stop, start continue. Look for this podcast and a lot of great future guests coming forward. Thank you.
Al Carter:
11:58
Thank you. Thank you, John. Thank you, Julie. This is great.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
Great Hi, welcome to stop start continue a reconciliation of the pharmacy industry sponsored by the medical memory. Thank you for joining us today. We look forward to providing you with quick thoughts from leaders across pharmacy to improve outcomes for patients. Make sure you follow us on LinkedIn and listen to stop, start continue wherever you get your podcast. Right now, in each episode, we're going to talk with top pharmacy thinkers and delve into what they feel needs to stop what needs to start happening and what needs to continue has to be best practices. From their point of view. You'll hear from industry leaders from all practice sites from retail to health systems FQHCs, especially pharmacy, noted regulatory experts and patient safety advocates. We will get their thoughts on what is driving pharmacy forward and what is holding us back from even greater heights. My name is John McMullen. For the past 20 years I've been supported pharmacy practice for inpatient remote retail, specialty pharmacies across different practice settings, health systems, FQHCs, retail independence and specialty pharmacies. My co host is Julie from the medical memory. It's a video education program that elevates the patient experience increases medication adherence, and drives better patient outcomes. On this episode of stops are continuing. We're joined by Dr. Al Carter, Executive Director of the NAACP, the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy. welcome Alex, great to see you again. How's to start a fall bend for you busy? I'm sure. It's
Al Carter 1:24
always busy, John, and thank you for having me. I look forward to this conversation. But it's it's been busy, but it's better than not being busy.
John McMillan 1:33
That's right. I think the last time we spoke you were you were about to jump into a bunch of meetings with different state boards. So I'm sure there's great conversations happening from there. And with that as a jumping off point, what do you see as something that, you know, from your point of view, really, we need to put some to stop and put the brakes on and really to improve our practice across the different sites that we all
Al Carter 1:54
hit? I think First John, as far as stopping there. There's a lot of negative press on pharmacists today in pharmacy, as we look at working conditions and some of the challenges with workforce challenge with workforce shortages that are affecting all healthcare professionals, specifically, pharmacists. What that has done, though, is that has led many pharmacists and others to to advocate against pharmacy for future pharmacists. So we need to stop telling students, those in college Joe's getting ready for pharmacy school to not go into pharmacy school, because it's going to lead to further shortages and further challenges in health care. That doesn't benefit anyone. What we're dealing with now with working conditions and somebody shortages. We're working to working through to address both regulation, working with different pharmacy associations, what have you. Well, we can't address this is people telling or saying negative things about pharmacists, when pharmacists have stepped up to the plate for COVID When pharmacists have stepped up to the plate for h one n one, any type of pandemic epidemic, any, you know, opioid use disorders, you know, stepping up to the plate they're like pharmacists are always there were always it's kind of like I had a statement that was told to me where it says pharmacists are like are like fire extinguishers. And emergency says break glass in case of emergency. We need pharmacists break glass and that's what you know federal government has done for COVID That's what we're doing right now to provide access more accessible access to opioid use disorder treatments and what have you. So stop, stop telling individuals to not go to pharmacy school and not become pharmacists. It is a great profession. It is a great career. I've been doing this for over 20 years. And I love my job. I love what I do. I love advocating for pharmacy. So continue to do so stop doing that so we can move.
John McMillan 3:54
That's a great point now, you know, and and you're right, there's there's so much value that the pharmacy and pharmacists bring to patients and communities that they serve. Right. I mean, there's people are much more trusting of the pharmacists and pharmacies and see them on a more regular basis than any other part of the healthcare, you know, continuum. So it's really important that we keep bringing those the new folks into the profession and making sure that they are, you know, providing the same level of customer and patient care that, that, you know, we've all been used to, right because and you're right, this is a great industry to be part of, I'm lucky enough to be part of it, you know, for the past 20 years or so. And so I really, I really appreciate the fact that you're saying hey, let's let's remind ourselves what a great profession This is. And for those folks that really want to help patients and improve their their community health, you know, to come on in, it's a great place to be it's wonderful. Awesome. So with that being said, what's what's one thing that you think we should start doing more of including advocating for our profession,
Al Carter 4:57
and I think that's the most important thing is like we need to educate. And we haven't you know, there's a lot of pharmacy Association we've been talking about this, we need to educate the public on what pharmacists do. The capability pharmacists have, what pharmacists can do with with, with an interdisciplinary team in practice and health care and providing quality health care, and we need to do so not just during emergencies, but all the time. And how do we educate the patient? How do we educate the general public, you know, 95% of the general population live within three to five miles of a pharmacy. And so the capabilities and access and opportunities to to have health care and quality health care provided to them is at your pharmacy. And many know that but many more don't. And so we need to start advocating and promoting pharmacy to the general public and showing just how pharmacists and your pharmacy staff can help and assist in their healthcare needs. Yeah, you
Julie Soukup 5:59
know, it's so interesting that you even say that, because working within a lot of hospitals, medical memory was originally originated, originated more in surgery centers, doctors, clinical spaces, and it's so interesting, leaning more and learning more about it, every single one of those patients are also touched by pharmacy touched out by beds to meds. And so for some of our hospitals that started leaning into this is this huge resource, this is what you have available to you, I had no idea. Even that capacity, it was like, Okay, great. Here's my surgeon, that's all I need. I we're done, and I'm discharged. But being able to have different, you know, tools and resources to even provide these hospitals say, hey, just, we don't know, most, most patients, most of your average person does not know the capacity and what's available, and even a lot of the, you know, free education and resources that they can get about, you know, what they're taking, what they're not taking, and all of that. So, absolutely, I think that's one thing that even I've noticed and learned a lot from, you know, as far as how often that's being touched in every speciality, you know, I'd
Al Carter 7:04
be shocked to hear any doctor, nurse physician, Assistant nurse practitioner, that doesn't have a pharmacist that they go to, for medical advice for medication advice. I hear it all the time. From physicians, I don't know what I would do without my pharmacist or the pharmacists or my interdisciplinary team. And so, you know, other health care professionals? No, it's just the general public doesn't necessarily know. So how do we educate them as well, in not just wait till, you know, there's some pandemic or other emergency where it's like, Alright, I'm gonna go to pharmacists, this is only thing is still gonna see what they can help us with and go from there. A lot of relationships for patients with primary care providers, or with other health care professionals to start from them going to the pharmacist. Yeah. And so that's, you know, understanding just the value that they can bring in promoting, that is something we need to start and we need to do a better job of,
John McMillan 7:58
right. Yeah, absolutely. Right. I mean, it's incredible how much the pharmacy teams in every practice site impact patient care and improve patient outcomes. Right. So, and that's what we're all here for. Right? That whole, the whole group of health care professionals is the goal is to make that patient better, right. So getting a better outcome and, and we're really the pharmacy is really at the center with the rest of the professional saying, hey, let's take care of this, and get these patients on their way into a better place. For sure. So, so we've talked about, you know, stop negative advocacy, start educating the public about, you know, hey, this is really an important part of the team. And let's let's get away from, you know, kind of the crisis mode of getting the pharmacies involved. So what's one thing that we're doing right now that you think is a great thing we need to continue, and probably do more of pharmacists
Al Carter 8:48
continue to step up to the plate when asked to do something. So we started off if you think about an h1 in one and 2010 2011 pharmacists, really then many states started moving to allow pharmacists to provide immunizations, and then started to only adults. With COVID. We've been providing immunizations now to babies, you know, individuals three and above. We've also started doing point of care testing, so testing for flu test and treat for flu test and treat for strep throat tests and treat for COVID. We pharmacists continue to step up to the plate to do what is necessary to treat that patient. You look at the passage of the Mad x at a mainstream Addiction Treatment Act. So now pharmacists are entering into the space with substance use disorders, opioid use disorders, to provide assistance and to provide treatment there. So we need to continue to show to show our value and continue to do these types of efforts in the healthcare space because we know that there's huge shortages across the whole healthcare spectrum, and it's going to take a team to be able to provide that quality and patient specific care to each patient and make Sure it's individualized to meet this patient's needs. And so we just got to continue to step up to the plate to provide those services, and not shy away from doing those. Or hesitate from doing them. Because we are trained, we are educated and have the capability to do all the services provide even more. Right?
John McMillan:
10:17
That's a great point. And, you know, again, we're in our pharmacy syllabus every week, every month, at a minimum, right. So we're already there, we've already got, you know, I mean, I got my flu shot at my local CVS, right, and it was easy to get mine. So it was great, right, and, you know, there's all kinds of those services in a, in a healthcare environment where they're trusted professionals, and people know, I'm gonna get great service there because, you know, it's, it's easy again, to do that, and it's a lot easier to get an appointment with the pharmacy than it is with a lot of primary care.
Al Carter:
10:52
We shouldn't have to wait until you know, it gets to a point where patients go into emergency room, where health care costs are, you know, so much higher, it can be done by talking to pharmacists, and when you have symptoms where we have conditioned, because there are many ways that pharmacists can help and should just continue to step up to the plate to, to talk to the patient to educate them on, you know, their conditions in ways that that they can help themselves but then also ways that pharmacists or others can help and providing different services, whether it's a health care, clinic screening, whatever the case may be, to provide this service to help that patient live their best life.
John McMillan:
11:31
Right? That's awesome. Well, I appreciate those insights. You know, Alan, and as always, you know, your your, your ability to kind of bring us all to a couple of really good places and help us understand what we can do. To stop start to continue making our profession better is really amazing. So thank you again, we appreciate it. You know that a wrap up this edition of stop, start continue. Look for this podcast and a lot of great future guests coming forward. Thank you.
Al Carter:
11:58
Thank you. Thank you, John. Thank you, Julie. This is great.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
