These services have reduced the clinics’ medication costs by up to 75%, while significantly improving control of chronic diseases for the most challenging patients. Chen is part of a faculty team that has acquired over $15 million in grant funding to advance the spread of ambulatory care clinical pharmacy services, including a $12 million grant from the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation to evaluate the impact of clinical pharmacy teams integrated into safety net clinics on quality, safety and total health care costs. Chen also serves as residency director for 15 PGY1 residents.
Chen has been involved with the HRSA’s Patient Safety and Clinical Pharmacy Services Collaborative (PSPC) since its inception, serving as Co-Chair from 2009 to 2010 and developing a medication intervention and safety measurement tool that has been adopted by PSPC teams and Quality Improvement Organizations across the nation. Chen served as chair of the California Society of Health-System Pharmacists’ (CSHP) MTM Task Force, leading the development of a resource guide to assist California pharmacists in initiating or advancing MTM programs.
Category 1 Award:
Individual Award for Career Achievement
Steven W. Chen, PharmD, FASHP, FCSHP
Chen is an Associate Professor and the Hygeia Centennial Chair in Clinical Pharmacy at the University of Southern California School of Pharmacy. He supervises clinical pharmacy services integrated into over a dozen safety net community clinics in Los Angeles and Orange Counties.
Category 2 Award:
Group Practice–Health System–Health Care Corporation
Community Health Association of Spokane (CHAS)
Community Health Association of Spokane (CHAS) is a non-profit community health center that provides access to all patients, regardless of insurance status or ability to pay. It is a “patient-run” organization with patients occupying a majority of the positions on its Board of Directors.
Operating since 1995, CHAS currently has nine clinic locations within the Inland Northwest (eastern Washington and northern Idaho), and serves as a health care home to nearly 50,000 patients. The mission of CHAS is to improve the overall health of the communities it serves by expanding access to quality primary health services, dental care and wellness services. There are currently 25 pharmacist providers incorporated into the care team who contribute to the continuity of care for the patients within the system. This integration has resulted in safer and more effective medication use for the patients they serve. The CHAS leadership – including the CEO, former and current medical director, and director of pharmacy – has been at the forefront of advocating aggressively for recognition of pharmacists as providers of direct patient care, and particularly post‐diagnosis primary care for chronic conditions.
Category 3 Award:
Nonprofit Organization–Association–Public/Private Partnerships
The University of Arizona College of Pharmacy’s Medication Management Center (MMC)
The Medication Management Center (“MMC”) is a pharmacist-run medication management program established in 2006 at The University of Arizona's College of Pharmacy. The program uses pharmacists in a call center to provide Medicare patients with medication therapy management (MTM) services.
The genesis of the MMC was established in law in direct response to the public policy direction outlined in the Medicare Modernization Act of 2003 (“MMA”). Even prior to the formation of the MMC, the pharmacists currently employed at the MMC were instrumental in creation and drafting of the language that would eventually become statutory requirements of today's Medicare program. By 2014, the MMC will be the largest provider of MTM services in the nation. Since 2006, the center has delivered MTM services to well over 1,000,000 Medicare beneficiaries nationwide. The MMC’s targeted approach to MTM works with prescription claims to qualify members and identify intervention opportunities. The MMC team then turns these identified opportunities into therapeutic interventions through a combination of mailings, faxes, and personalized phone calls to patients and providers. The Pinnacle Awards are administered by the APhA Foundation. Premier support for the Pinnacle Awards is provided by an educational grant from Merck. This activity is additionally supported by an educational donation provided by Amgen.