Message from the CEO

Hurricanes, tornadoes and earthquakes have impacted all of our lives this year.  It makes you wonder doesn’t it?  In addition to that, pharmacy and community pharmacy in particular, continued to be under siege with reduced reimbursement rates, increased mail order unfair competition and the proposed merger of two large PBMs. It’s been a difficult year for our profession and for NJPhA but while dealing with adversity we have had significant success in moving the profession forward and strengthening our organization so that we can continue our efforts on behalf of pharmacists in all areas of practice.

Our dedicated office staff, Dorita Allen and Fiona Romaine, continues their excellent work on your behalf.  It’s truly amazing how so few people can accomplish so much. The database has been improved, our website offers updated information about upcoming programs, events and legislative updates and we continue to provide our members regular updates through email alerts.

Through the guidance of the line officers and Board of Trustees and with the help of a board retreat, we were able to focus our efforts this year in several areas.  While membership has increased over last year, our membership recruitment efforts have not had the level of success that we hoped for. We will need to refocus our efforts on membership next year.

We were very successful in assuring that each region continues to present quality educational offerings at their meetings.  The commitment to support at least four meeting in each region per year remains an important foundation for the success of the regions and the office will continue to support these efforts.  In 2011 we will conduct three regional law programs in 2011, four Immunization Training Programs, two Consultant Pharmacist Training Programs and two MTM Certificate Training Programs all of which were well attended. Clearly this is the type of educational programing that pharmacists in New Jersey are interested in attending.  The board of trustees also recently approved the development of a Diabetes Certificate Training Program that should be completed early next year.

On the advocacy and legislative front this has been the most active year since I became your CEO. It sometimes seems like I spent more time in Trenton than in Princeton. Working with our Lobbyist Laurie Clark, our line offices and I met with the Commissioner of Health and Senior Services, Department of Human Services as well as the Director of Insurance to assure that pharmacy has a place in Health Care Reform and that community pharmacies can participate in all prescription plans without being disadvantaged.  We also have become involved in the state Immunization Task force and the Rutgers University/Horizon Health Literacy Project. Legislation has been introduced to enable pharmacists to provide MTM services in specific disease states for state employees.  NJPhA had a major win for consultant pharmacists this year by preventing the implementation of new regulations that would have required submission of expenses and salaries to the state.  Several meetings were also held to better understand how we can work more closely with state nursing home inspectors.  Several meetings were conducted in an effort to reduce Medicaid application rejections based on clerical inconsistencies. We also continue to fight for a PBM transparency bill in New Jersey.  The bottom line is that NJPhA has significantly increased awareness of what pharmacists can do to improve the health of patients in New Jersey and this is a start that we can build on in the future.

We were also able to resurrect the Pharmacists Institute of New Jersey this year.  We have held several organizational meetings, invited individuals to serve on the board and are now poised to move forward with requests for funding of specific projects.

This year we continued our efforts to work more closely with the other pharmacy organizations in the state.  While it is sometimes difficult, these efforts must continue to assure the success of our profession in New Jersey.

I want to take this opportunity to thank everyone who wished me well during my recent illness. Your prayers and good wishes were greatly appreciated.  This is a volunteer based organization and always will be. I can never fully express my gratitude and appreciation to the people who “stepped up” to fill the void during my absence.  Sandra Moore, Linda Gooen, Dorita Allen, Fred Trinkley, John Surmay, Joe Tarallo and John Colaizzi Jr. are among the many people who without a second thought took on the burden of making sure that our convention would take place and be a great success. Thanks again for all of your efforts.

I remain confident that NJPhA will continue to grow and be successful. I strongly believe that the long term success of pharmacy in New Jersey is tied to our ability to improve the lot of pharmacists, assure the future of community pharmacy and increase the role of pharmacists as health care providers.