•From the NCAP President • Stephen F. Eckel, PharmD, MHA, BCPS
Ready, Aim, Fire: A Year of Action for NCAP As we embark on 2017, NCAP is ready for action. The past 2 years have been spent planning for this year. As a result, we believe our plan of action is deliberate, timely, strategic, comprehensive, and addresses our member needs. I think it is important to remind everyone what has been occurring over the past 2 years within NCAP. This will give perspective on how we arrived at this point. 1.
Creating stability – over the past 5 years, NCAP has had instability in the executive director position. While change is sometimes good, this continual turnover resulted in a lack of focus, poor communication, and limited membership engagement, to name a few issues. While there are successes that we can point to over this time period, we can also identify missed opportunities based upon this instability. We currently have an Executive Director, Penny Shelton, who is a pharmacist from North Carolina and a past president of NCAP. These were the desired characteristics that we identified when we started the search process. Penny has spent the first 6 months canvassing North Carolina, listening to members, and understanding the diversity of practice needs. She has also been active in working with the state legislature and other health care groups to identify opportunities and to develop relationships necessary for future success.
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Enhancing structure – the structure of the organization was reviewed and modifications to the Bylaws were recently approved. The Bylaws revision was initiated because of a recognition that our leadership structure did not allow for decision-making in a timely manner and was not as conducive to board member input as it should be. We reduced our number of board seats and invested in the strengthening of our Practice Forums. We believe this will position us well into the future to take advantage of strategic opportunities and deliver value to our members. The new Bylaws can be accessed from the Table of Contents of this issue of North Carolina Pharmacist – look in the “From the NCAP Office section.”
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Finalize our Strategic Plan – before hiring a permanent Executive Director, NCAP also revised its Strategic Plan. The revision was needed because the last one was dated, and we felt it would assist in identifying the desired characteristics of an Executive Director. We also left gaps, as we wanted the Executive Director to assist in its completion. The new Strategic Plan to help guide our leadership and resource allocation has been approved by the Board of Directors and is also accessible in this issue of North Carolina Pharmacist.
Significant preparation and reflection has occurred over the last 2 years. As a result, I feel like we have completed the steps of ‘ready’ and ‘aim.’ We all know that the next word is ‘fire’ and NCAP is now in a position to do so. While more information will be distributed over the next few months, all of our actions will be focused on advancing the role of the pharmacist in North Carolina. This concept guides all of our decisions and actions and is the thread that weaves our different practice groups and generations of pharmacists together. Here are a few areas of focus for the leadership team: 1. Advocacy – NCAP has played more of a passive and supportive role in the past and has been criticized for it. We are now much more active in this area. We have recently hired a lobbyist and are working with the State Legislation on numerous activities. We are actively discussing ways that pharmacists can assist in helping our opioid crisis as well as enhance our collaborative practice agreement laws. We are still in the early stages, but we need your help. Please plan to join our Pharmacy Legislative Day on March 22. We need as many people as possible to help us advocate for our profession. 2. Education – NCAP realizes that the education and competencies that pharmacists need to be successful in caring for their patients are varied and evolving as we transition to a health care that focuses on value and quality. NCAP recognizes this need and also hears from members that there is a gap in products and tools to meet these skills and competencies. NCAP realizes this need, which resulted in a changed conference/convention structure based upon member input. We are discussing further improvements and have plans for new offerings this year. Any ideas, thoughts, or interest in participating in this endeavor would be appreciated. 2017 has the opportunity to be a year of action for NCAP with many new activities focused on advancing the role of pharmacists in North Carolina. However, NCAP is made up of its members, and we can only do these activities with the involvement of you. Can we count on you to help us ‘pull the trigger’ as we head into 2017? This is the only way we can be successful. I would appreciate any insights and experiences you might have on this perspective. You can let me know what you think by e-mail at seckel@unc.edu. You can also follow me on Twitter at @stepheneckel.
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