Summary: Today’s episode of the VHA Innovation Ecosystem podcast will focus on the recent VHE Aungrial talks that took place on August 29th and 30th of 2018. Over 70 VA employees attended this event and shared their struggles and successes within their respective VA programs. 13 of these professionals gave presentations about their work. Among the presenters was Dr. Ellina Seckel, Associate Chief, Ambulatory and Specialty Care - Pharmacy Service at William S. Middleton Memorial Veterans Hospital in Madison Wisconsin. Dr. Seckel is in charge of implementing the Increasing Access to Primary Care Through Clinical Pharmacy Specialists program. The doctor will explain why the facility felt the need to create a new pharmaceutical position for their primary care teams and the overwhelmingly positive effects it has done for both physician and patient satisfaction. During this special mini-episode you will learn about: What makes a Clinical Pharmacy Specialist different from a traditional pharmacist? How hiring a pharmacist specialist help care access for veterans? How Dr. Seckel implemented the program and achieved such impressive results! The culture shock that had to be overcome before the program could really work. A Clinical Pharmacy Specialist’s role within a primary care team. The feedback from providers and patients. How Dr. Seckel and her team measure the success rate of the program. Dr. Seckel’s hopes for the next five years. Dr. Seckel’s final thoughts. RESOURCES & MENTIONS William S. Middleton Memorial Veterans Hospital The VHA Innovation Experience VA Innovators Network Diffusion of Excellence U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs VHA: IE Podcast Quotes from today’s episode: "Imagine every veteran having same-day access to care. Imagine every veteran being on only the medications they need, and their chronic conditions well controlled, and imagine every veteran feeling well and whole." -- Dr. Seckel "How the pharmacist provider or clinical pharmacy specialist works within the team, we do have weekly team meetings, for example on my team, once a week, I sit down with our primary care provider, our RN, the LPN, and our scheduler and we talk about the patients that might be facing so unique challenges and we strategize together on how each of us can be most supportive to that patient." -- Dr. Seckel "So pharmacist providers in Madison in 2015, recognized that we had an access issue. Wait times were greater than 30 days in primary care and we wanted to do something about it." -- Dr. Seckel "VA pharmacists providers have been able to hold scopes of practices federally since 1995, and in fact, today there are over 4000 pharmacists practicing under scopes of practices allow them these privileges today." -- Dr. Seckel Thank you for joining us for the VHA Innovation Ecosystem podcast. If you know a veteran who may need a little help or you are that veteran, please call the VA’s crisis line at 1-800-273-8255 and press 1.
