The Patient Care Practice Management (PCPM) Community owes its origins to the convergence of three historical events: the MTM Boot Camp pre-meeting workshop during the 2012 annual meeting in Tampa, FL1, the adoption of Comprehensive Medication Management (CMM) by CPNP as the preferred model for psychiatric pharmacists to provide direct patient care2,3, and from the efforts of the CPNP Foundation's initial charge of developing and holding a summit meeting-the intent of the summit is to convene a group of key stakeholders that would help to create a "road map" for psychiatric pharmacists to integrate their services into patient centered medical homes and for them to be compensated.
For the many who were in attendance, including members of the CPNP Foundation Board, the 2012 MTM Boot Camp workshop crystallized the importance of several key issues: 1) the role that pharmaceutical care plays for our patients, 2) the necessity of evaluating all of a patient's medications, not just their psychiatric pharmacotherapy, 3) delivering a consistent patient care service in order for payment to eventually be viable, 4) that patient care is about the patient and not about the pharmacist, 5) that pharmacists need to be health care team players, 6) that each psychiatric pharmacist is responsible for actively transforming their own patient care efforts towards the CMM model, and 7) that the future is now!
During the 12 months leading up to the 2013 annual meeting in Colorado Springs, there was a long series of regularly scheduled conference calls involving a small CPNP Foundation work group who were aiming to construct the format, schedule and list of invitees for the planned CPNP Foundation summit meeting. During those discussions, it became clear that there were a number of obstacles in place that needed to be addressed before a summit meeting could become feasible. The 3-person work group was also very conscious about the importance of constructing a solid proposal since such a meeting would require a substantial financial commitment from the CPNP Foundation Board. Among the obstacles that were identified were specific concerns about: 1) legislative and Accountable Care Organization differences from state-to-state, 2) how to define the services that psychiatric pharmacists deliver, knowing how diverse our practice settings and responsibilities are, 3) the real and perceived barriers that pharmacists face when trying to implement "new" services within care systems, and 4) who should the key stakeholders be, and should these stakeholders reside within pharmacy, or outside of pharmacy?
As the 2013 annual meeting was approaching, a decision was made by the CPNP Foundation Board to form the Comprehensive Medication Management (CMM) Network. It was agreed that comprehensive medication management, as a patient care service, should be the preferred way in which psychiatric pharmacists should become similar as we transform what we do in order to best meet the needs of patients and our healthcare colleagues. The intent of the CMM Network would therefore be to attract CPNP members who were interested in providing CMM in their practices, and then to work towards insuring that all in the network were practicing in a consistent manner (following directly from what was learned at the MTM Boot Camp workshop in 2012). The CMM Network was then formed at an impromptu meeting which occurred at the 2013 annual meeting in Colorado Springs. Following the 2013 annual meeting, the network initially communicated strictly through email. But as time went by, the group evolved into using monthly conference calls during which individuals would take turns giving short presentations about their patient care CMM practices. These conference calls also provided a forum for participants to ask questions about CMM services and also have problem-solving discussions.
While the CMM Network was always open to any CPNP member interested in learning about what others were doing, there were limitations to how the network was organized and how the network communicated. As a result, the conceptual development of "communities" by CPNP provided an improved format and structure for those interested in CMM as a patient care practice to exist and grow. The PCPM Community will focus largely on CMM, but discussion of other models like PC-MHI will also be included to facilitate more consensus among members regarding best practices surrounding practice management.