ASHP 2019 Recap: Trends, Hot Topics, and Innovations for Hospital Pharmacy

Last week, the ASHP 2019 Midyear Clinical Meeting & Exhibition was held in Las Vegas. The event brought together thousands of health-system pharmacists from across the country. The event provided the opportunity to learn, engage, and network.

We were excited to exhibit, support, and attend the event and wanted to share our perspective on trends, hot topics, and innovations with this ASHP 2019 recap.

Opening Session Features Condoleezza Rice

Monday’s keynote speaker was the 66th Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Dr. Rice shared with attendees her story, including growing up in Birmingham, Alabama, as the daughter of educators. She professed that she knew at an early age that education was essential to her journey.

Dr. Rice offered anecdotes or her life in public service, serving as a national security advisor for George H.W. Bush as well as her role as Secretary of State under George W. Bush. She provided the audience with wisdom on serving others and how to set and achieve goals.

340B Policy Updates

340B was once again a hot topic at ASHP 2019. In the session, “340B Update: Hot Topics and Practice Metrics,” an expert panel provided key knowledge on the current state of the program. The esteemed presenters provided information about key metrics necessary to assess the success of the program. Further, they shared specific examples of how their organizations tackle 340B compliance. Much of the conversation centered around 340B savings calculations, FTE justifications, and specific areas for improvement.

Pharmacy Forecast 2020

The ASHP Foundation Pharmacy Forecast Report was explored in a session as well. The focus of the meeting was identifying 2020 trends, as revealed in the report. Specific areas of hospital pharmacy included:

• The future of pharmacy education and workforce
• External trends and disruptive forces impacting pharmacy
• The opioid crisis
• Technology innovations
• The need to leverage data
• The healthcare marketplace
• Pharmacy supply chains
• “Black Swan” situations

With each trend or topic identified, strategic advice of national authorities was presented. Attendees were urged to apply this knowledge to their practice setting.

Opioid Task Force

ASHP created an Opioid Task Force earlier this year. The 23-member group includes public health and policy leaders, clinicians from pharmacy, nursing, and pain management experts. The Task Force has urged hospitals to create Opioid Stewardship programs. The town hall provided preliminary findings of the task force on ways to mitigate the opioid crisis.

The Task Force is focused on defining the role of the pharmacist in solving the problem and identifying strategies to solve the epidemic including education, tools, resources, metrics, public policy, prevention, and mitigation.

The group expects to publish its formal recommendations by spring 2020.

The ASHP National Survey Results

The ASHP National Survey results were discussed in a state of pharmacy presentation. The presenters touched on the significant trends shaping hospital pharmacy. Pharmacist members from a variety of health systems, from less than 50 beds to over 600, responded.

Key points of discussion included:

• Drug formulary strategies
• Demonstrating the value of pharmacist intervention strategies with metrics
• Pharmacogenomics
• IV workflow management software
• Opioid Stewardship Programs (47% of hospitals surveyed have one in place)
• Centralization of processes
• Hospital-based outpatient infusion centers
• Programs based on population health data
• Autoverification

Wednesday Morning Highlights: A Conversation with Julia Louis-Dreyfus

Acclaimed actress and producer Julia Louis-Dreyfus joined ASHP for a conversation. She shared with attendees what she’s learned from her long and prestigious career as well as what it’s like to be a breast cancer survivor.

Charming, funny, and inspiring, Louis-Dreyfus had a crowd of thousands engaged, including a bird that popped into the ballroom.

We hope you enjoyed ASHP 2019. Thanks to all those attendees that took the time to chat with us. In response to our conversations with hospital pharmacists, we created a new eBook, “Solving Data Management Challenges for Hospital Pharmacy.” Download your copy today!