Pharmacist Involvement Within ASCO: Standards Development, Certification Programs, and the Potential for Pharmacy CE at Future ASCO Meetings

In 2024, the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) surpassed 50,000 members, 800 (1.5%) of which are pharmacists, explained Stephen Grubbs, MD, FASCO, vice president of Care Delivery at ASCO, during a presentation at the 2024 Florida Society of Clinical Oncology (FLASCO) Fall Session in Orlando. Grubbs explained further that ASCO membership includes individuals from 170 countries outside of the United States, with a quarter of members currently falling into this international category.

Grubbs noted that currently ASCO is interested in growing its membership among pharmacists in the coming years.

“We have plenty of room for more pharmacists within our membership community,” Grubbs said during the FLASCO session. “Among our volunteers, we have pharmacists who are very busy in many of our volunteer activities.”

One of the primary volunteer areas where pharmacists are involved is within ASCO pharmacy and safety standards. Specifically, ASCO/NCODA Medically Integrated Pharmacy Standards involved pharmacist volunteers including Michael Reff, PharmD, MBA; Michael Brodersen, PharmD; Howard Cohen, RPh, MS; Steven D’Amato, BSc Pharm; and Eileen Peng, PharmD, with Reff and Brodersen co-authoring the ASCO/NCODA standards published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology in December 2019. Additionally, ASCO/Oncology Nursing Society (ONS) Antineoplastic Administration Safety Standards included pharmacist volunteers such as Alexandre Chan, PharmD, MPH, FCCP, FISOPP, BCPS, BCOP, APh; and Amanda Ouzts, PharmD, with Chan co-authoring the ASCO/ONS standards published in JCO Oncology Practice in May 2024.

“Several landmark standards were developed in the last couple of years, and I want to give credit to the pharmacists that have been involved with it. First of all, working with NCODA, we published the first ASCO/NCODA medically integrated pharmacy standards in 2019, and Mike Reff [executive director and founder] of NCODA was a real key part of this,” Grubbs said. “Now, those standards are undergoing revision again, with the assistance of NCODA.”

Grubbs noted that the ASCO/ONS Antineoplastic Administration Safety Standards are continually being updated, with the most recent update conducted in the spring of 2024.

“Again, the ASCO/ONS standards could not be done without the assistance of pharmacist volunteers,” Grubbs said.

Grubbs explained further that before working on standards, guidelines and measures are critical.

“We have a neuropathy panel working on guidelines with several pharmacists, and [we have] a global guideline advisory group [working on guidelines] as we look internationally at what can and can't be done with drugs in lower resource areas and elsewhere,” Grubbs said. “This global guideline advisory group has Steven D’Amato, BSc Pharm, working as a part of that.”

Grubbs explained that the measures group was moved under his supervision within Care Delivery last year, and this shift has required Grubbs to become more familiar with how measures are developed.

“Developing measures is not an easy thing to do. It is a long process, and it takes a lot of testing and verification. But what we do is we set up technical expert panels that work on a specific measure you want to build, and pharmacists do play a key role in that,” Grubbs said. “We're working on an antiemetic measure right now, and these are all going to be electronically capturable out of your [electronic health records (EHRs)]. Also, we have a future one we're going to be recruiting pharmacists for soon on non–small cell lung cancer biomarker testing and a [granulocyte colony-stimulating factor (G-CSF)] measure. We need these good measures to be able to look at the quality of practices.”

ASCO also has committees that look at ASCO’s certification programs, such as the Quality Oncology Practice Initiative (QOPI) Certification Program Steering Group and the ASCO Certified Pilot Task Force, the latter of which was completed in 2023. Pharmacists are involved in both committees, with Kate Taucher, MHA, PharmD, and Alexandre Chan, PharmD, on the QOPI Certification Program Steering Group and Michael Reff, PharmD, MBA, on the now completed ASCO Certified Pilot Task Force.

ASCO also has a Quality Improvement Steering Group focused on the ASCO Quality Training Program (QTP). Amy Morris, PharmD, senior scientific director at Pharmacy Times Continuing Education™, is a QTP coach and faculty, with 2 new pharmacist coaches being onboarded currently, according to Grubbs. ASCO’s QTP has also been collaborating with NCODA on a single-day workshop in 2020 and with the Hematology/Oncology Pharmacy Association (HOPA) on 5 single-day workshops held starting in 2019, with a 6-month oral anticancer agent workshop program held over 3 sessions from 2022 to 2023.

“These are very important programs for us. Again, we have pharmacists that help us in these certifications… and we have pharmacists who are faculty and coaches for QTP,” Grubbs said. “[For QTP,] we actually have been very collaborative with HOPA on this, and have done several big sessions with HOPA, as well as a single-day workshop with NCODA. I just want to point out that the QTP Winter Session is in Florida starting in January 2025 in Pembroke Pines. Anybody who is interested in bringing a team to that session, please be our guest on that.”

ASCO also has the Clinical Practice and Innovation Committee that used to be a part of ASCO’s Clinical Practice Committee, according to Grubbs. “My plans for 2025 are to get a pharmacist on this official committee,” Grubbs said.

Grubbs also noted that Sybil Green, JD, RPh, MHA, is the current vice president of the Center for Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion, and because of her background in pharmacy, she brings a pharmacist perspective to her work with ASCO. “She’s been with ASCO for 7 years… and I work quite a bit with her,” Grubbs said.

ASCO’s flagship certification program is ASCO Certified, which is a ASCO certification for outpatient medical oncology care delivery. Currently, this certification is available in Florida, according to Grubbs, and Memorial Healthcare System in Florida is 1 of the first 12 practices to get ASCO Certified.

“But I want to point out that one of the key parts of this certification is team-based care. As you all know, pharmacists are key members of care teams, and they play a role in this. I think this is very important, and we want to be able to get this out to more and more people,” Grubbs said.

Attendees flood the ASCO Annual Meeting each year. Image Credit: © ASCO/Matt Herp 2023

Following Grubbs presentation at FLASCO, he asked attendees for any questions or comments. Tiba Al Sagheer, PharmD, BCOP, BCACP, an outpatient clinical pharmacy specialist at Miami Cancer Institute and Baptist Health South Florida, noted that pharmacists often face challenges when trying to attend conferences due to difficulties getting access to funding. According to Al Sagheer, these funding challenges can make it difficult to attend ASCO workshops or the annual meeting in Chicago. Grubbs responded to this comment by noting that the ASCO Quality Care Symposium is also available for those who are not able to attend the annual meeting, and this meeting is held in San Francisco, which may be more convenient for pharmacists who are not able to make it to Chicago due to funding challenges.

Al Sagheer additionally noted that an incentive for pharmacists to attend the annual meeting in Chicago would be if ASCO offered BCOP certification or credits. Al Sagheer noted that other meetings have been able to provide this for pharmacists by working with organizations such as HOPA to support this offering.

Grubbs responded by noting that he will take that information back to ASCO to discuss further, as that would need to involve ASCO’s education department.

“We gave nursing credits at one point in time, and they stopped doing it,” Grubbs said. “My answer is: The more credits we can give out for education—let's do it. So, I will take that back to ASCO.”

Jorge Garcia, PharmD, MS, MHA, MBA, FACCC, FACHE, assistant vice president of Miami Cancer Institute and Baptist Health South Florida, explained that at the 2024 ASCO Annual Meeting, he learned from another pharmacist that the annual meeting does not provide any continuing education (CE) credits for pharmacists. Garcia explained that he was shocked when he learned this and wanted to confirm this information with leadership of ASCO’s CE programs. After finding such an individual in the meeting exhibit hall, he was able to confirm with her that ASCO provides no CE for pharmacists.

“She said, ‘Oh my gosh, pharmacy CE is so difficult to do. You guys have all these extra requirements.’ But you know, we do it at the state level, and we do it in small settings,” Garcia said. “I think it's very important [to offer this] so that pharmacists feel welcome. A lot of the innovation at ASCO is around new pharmacotherapy, which is right down our alley. So, I know everybody I've talked to at ASCO is committed, and no matter how difficult it is [to accomplish], it is probably something that we could make happen for the pharmacy community.”

Grubbs responded by noting that he completely agrees with Garcia’s point regarding the importance of offering CE for pharmacists in order to make them feel welcome at the annual meeting. He additionally noted that with new leadership overseeing the education department, he has hope for this changing in the future.

“We now have a new person overseeing all the education activities,” Grubbs said. “So, I'm hoping that I'll have this discussion with them, because I need to do this for our advanced practice providers, for oncology nurses, and for pharmacists. There's no reason if you're going to spend the time to come to our big meeting that you shouldn’t be getting some CE from it. It just doesn't make any sense to me.”

REFERENCE

Grubbs S. The Value of Onco-Pharmacy Presence in ASCO. Presented at: 2024 FLASCO Fall Session; Orlando, Florida; November 1-2, 2024.