Charles F Caley, PharmD, BCPP
PCPM Community Co-Leader
CPNP Foundation Board of Directors and CPNP Past President
Earlier this year, CPNP implemented the concept of "communities" in an effort to facilitate interactions between members who have a shared area of professional interest. CPNP provides an infrastructure for facilitating community communications and online resource sharing, as well as a user-friendly platform for members to interact. The Patient Care Practice Management (PCPM) Community is for any CPNP member interested in promoting patient care through practice management. This community will emphasize the comprehensive medication management (CMM) practice model and allow members to learn how to implement it in their practice. In addition, Primary Care-Mental Health Integration (PC-MHI) and other practice models more relevant to certain practice settings will also be discussed.
Currently, the PCPM community has 112 members and is providing several shared resources including a CMM toolkit, access to pre-recorded CMM presentations, and a link to the patient-centered primary care collaborative. A recently conducted survey of community members has given community leaders helpful feedback for planning future topics. The community will hold quarterly conference calls focusing on topics such as discussions of effective teams, new models of care, motivational interviewing, data collection, complex cases, reviews of studies or publications, and member practices.
The roots of the PCPM Community began within the CPNP Foundation as a Comprehensive Medication Management (CMM) network. The CPNP Foundation implemented the CMM Network for three reasons. First, it was recognized that comprehensive medication management was the practice model being openly endorsed by CPNP, second, delivery of an established and consistent practice model (such as CMM) was important for quality patient care, and third, being able to ensure a quality patient care service is an important requirement for any service that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) would reimburse. Thus, the original intent was for the Foundation to identify CMM practitioners, and then grow the CMM Network as a way to cultivate a practicing cohort who would be serving patients with serious and persistent mental illnesses. The premise being that it is better to demonstrate to others what you are doing and that it benefits patients in advance of payment, than it is to say you will deliver services once payment for such has been approved without there being any evidence that the service will have a favorable return on investment.
After one year in existence, the CMM Network then had the opportunity to transition from the CPNP Foundation over to CPNP, and become one of the first approved CPNP communities. By that time, there was additional interest being raised about primary care-mental health integration, and its impact on clinical pharmacy practice. Since this too is an important aspect to our evolving health care system, the community evolved from being only focused on the CMM practice model, to also including the practice management aspects of patient care services in light of PC-MHI.
Given that the profession of pharmacy is in a transitional state, especially as it applies to direct patient care, the PCPM community is an excellent opportunity for CPNP members to learn about related practice issues and discuss topics of interest. Take a few minutes and sign up now to participate in the PCPM Community.