CEO’s column
are associations essential? Kate Gainer, PharmD
|
Executive Vice President & CEO
IPA (along with numerous other associations) As I write this editorial, the state of Iowa is in its sixth have opened our member-only benefits to share week of a state declared public health emergency information with all pharmacy professionals in for the coronavirus pandemic. COVID-19 news floods need. IPA staff members spend our days providing our inboxes and daily video conferences. Nothing advocacy to state agencies including the Board of is ‘business as usual.’ Community pharmacies Pharmacy, DHS, Iowa Medicaid, the Insurance Division, remain open, many curbside or delivery only, to as well as the Executive Branch and the Governor’s provide essential medications and services to their staff. IPA has been in close communication with all patients. Health-system pharmacies move from the six members of Iowa’s congressional delegation preparatory phase to the planning phase and in some and their staff, and in daily communication with hospitals the surge phase, with policies around drug national pharmacy organizations to relay pressing shortages, personnel, and infection control changing concerns to federal daily. Senior care pharmacists agencies. Our highest face unique challenges as priority is to advocate for outbreaks hit nursing homes, you, as essential healthcare and pharmacists are not even “YOU, IPA members, providers, during this time. allowed inside to perform consulting. Regardless of are among the We’ve worked with practice setting, pharmacist healthcare heroes that CEImpact to create roles are different today than important education they were only a few weeks ago. will rise to take care related to COVID-19 clinical implications, case scenarios Just as a rise in COVID-19 of our state.” and treatment, as well as a cases is inevitable, it is also 30-minute training on point inevitable that pharmacists of care testing. will be front and center during this public health emergency and global We’ve extracted the most relevant updates for Iowa pandemic. Pharmacists and pharmacy technicians pharmacists and hosted weekly webinars with key are essential members of the healthcare team and pharmacy stakeholders – IPA, the Board of Pharmacy, essential members of the frontline workforce. YOU, IPA Wellmark, MCO’s, Colleges, CEImpact, and an IPA members, are among the healthcare heroes that will member now working for a NYC hospital. rise to take care of our state – one community, one facility, one patient at a time. We’ve shared press releases to keep the public informed of pharmacists’ important work during While pharmacists and pharmacy technicians are the pandemic and raised awareness of impending essential, what about the Association that represents drug shortages, COVID testing, and expanding you? Is an association essential? Six weeks ago, I pharmacists’ role to provide care during this thought the answer was going to be NO, and I felt pandemic. IPA facilitated a joint endorsement with guilty for not serving with colleagues on the frontlines. the two Colleges of Pharmacy and the Board of But in my fifteen years working at IPA, never have I Pharmacy for the CDC’s guidelines on infection witnessed more important advocacy, more relevant control in pharmacies. information sharing, and more timely education.
6
| The Journal of the Iowa Pharmacy Association
