There was a buzz heard throughout Pharmacy Education 2017—generated from the non-stop networking between colleagues from across the country coupled with the electric sounds of Music City. The Academy gathered to explore the future of pharmacy and education in the face of an ever-changing healthcare environment, a rising opioid epidemic and increased calls for patient-centered care. More than 2,500 attendees converged on the Gaylord Opryland Resort and Convention Center to learn, shape the conversation and guide the profession first-hand.
A Meeting of the Minds
Leading Change Through Education
Kevin E. Lofton, CEO of Catholic Health Initiatives, took Opening General Session attendees on a deep dive into the challenging and changing environment of U.S. healthcare. “Let's face it, we're an illness-care system, not a healthcare system,” he summarized. “It is time to challenge the status quo and the old methods will not carry us through.” Stressing the importance of preventive care, Lofton explored some “outside-the-box” initiatives taken by his own organization, such as funding a movie theatre in rural Minnesota to reduce traffic accidents.
Annual Meeting attendees raised nearly $1,000 for Pencil, a Nashville-based organization that collects donated school supplies—pencils, pens, notebooks, backpacks and more—for local classrooms. To learn more, and to donate, visit http://www.pencilforschools.org.
The buzz continued the next day as Dr. Wilson Compton, deputy director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) of the National Institutes of Health, addressed a packed room on the rising opioid crisis, and ultimately, the important role pharmacists play in reversing this trend. “Why we need greater than 15 billion opioid tablets in any year, I’m not sure,” Compton said. Despite outpacing all other countries in opioid prescriptions, there was no evidence pain was treated any better in the U.S. “We have seen a modest decline in the prescribing of opioids," about a 20 percent reduction from 2010, but “we have a huge population that has made the transition from misuse of prescription pills to the misuse of street drugs.”
Compton concluded, however, that expanded roles for pharmacists can help. This includes leveraging pharmacists’ roles to protect the community from diversion, integrating with prescription drug monitoring program data systems, writing partial prescriptions, dispensing methadone and more.
Tuesday’s General Session audience saw an impassioned appeal for patient care reform from Regina Holliday, patient advocate and artist. After creating a Pharmacy Education 2017-inspired work in the main hall, Holliday used her painting as a catalyst for discussion of her late husband’s struggle to receive appropriate, and coordinated, care for kidney cancer.
Community Connection
The AACP Annual Meeting is a place for community, and that was no more evident than on #PharmEd17’s social media channels.
Members from all over the Academy networked, took selfies and shared ideas with attendees and colleagues back home,
across Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Relive some of the highlights:
Teachers Seminar inducing nostalgia- it all started for me here as a #WalmartScholar in 2012! #finallyfaculty #pharmed17
— Kashelle Lockman (@PalliPharmer) July 15, 2017