Expert: Alignment Across Pharmacy Profession Can Lead to Effective Policy, Optimized Treatment

Jon Easter, professor of the practice and vice chair of practice advancement at the University of North Carolina Eshelman School of Pharmacy, sat down for an interview with Pharmacy Times at NACDS Total Store Expo (TSE). Easter discussed the important need for pharmacists and pharmacy students to pay attention to new research, and to utilize this pathway to form new policies, especially surrounding diabetes. Easter also spoke of the need to align the pharmacy profession across all of its stakeholders.

Pharmacy Times®: Do you feel it is important for pharmacists – and pharmacy students – to pay attention to new research? Why?

Jon Easter, Professor of the Practice at UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy: Absolutely, you know, the students are our future. They are so eager to change healthcare, to improve healthcare, they're so eager to try new things. So, exposing our students to these new implementation projects, to these new diabetes projects, is very important. So, we are integrating students every step of the way in some of these projects. The other thing I would emphasize and what we're working with students on are the policy implications of what's happening now, and so having them to be aware of the environment in which they're going out into practice and ways to hopefully shape that in a positive way.

Pharmacy Times: How can research initiatives be utilized to eventually form new policies that can increase access to diabetes care?

Easter: It really is all about policy right now. It really is. Pharmacy has done an okay job engaging in policy, we've tried in the past through provider status and other things. I think now is the time to really lean in to engaging with policymakers and really engaging with other stakeholders and professions to drive towards changes. And the 2 changes that I would really signal right now is one, really the business model of pharmacy and being able to drive towards sustainable dispensing models. The other is around collaborative practice and being paid for services and sustainable services, which is really what this project is all about.

Pharmacy Times: Are there issues of particular interest or importance that you believe should be focused on next, especially in the community pharmacy space?

Easter: Absolutely. So, I would go back to the business model and being able to level out that opportunity to at least have fair reimbursement for dispensing. In addition to that, we have to think very, very closely about where do we go next in terms of sustainable reimbursement for services, and whether that is provider status, whether that is independent prescribing, whether that is team-based care, we have to sort of pivot into and lean into reimbursable and sustainable services, which is again, the point of our project, in working with payers to do so.

Pharmacy Times: Is there anything else you’d like to add?

Easter: I think it's important for us all to be thinking about being aligned as a profession right now, as we think about the future. I think we hear that pharmacy is at a crossroads right now, and it's an incredible profession that provides incredible value to our health care system. So, let's lean into innovation. Let's lean into these new, sustainable services. Let's lean into policy and advocacy that is going to be necessary to facilitate better partnerships and the future of health care. So, let's do that together.