President Letter June 2015
Steven M Burghart, DPh, MBA, BCPP
CPNP President
“Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.” Soren Kierkegaard
As I approach the end of my CPNP presidential year, I am pleased with how far we have come as an organization and hopeful for the future of the specialty. “Growing the Future of Neuropsychiatric Pharmacy” was the tagline for the 18th Annual Meeting, held in Tampa, Florida in April. I am pleased to see that CPNP really is growing the future; we had record numbers of attendees, student attendees and poster presentations at the meeting. This issue of the CPNP Perspective focuses on highlights of the Annual Meeting. I have attended many educational meetings throughout my career, and the CPNP Annual meeting is the best among them and one I look forward to attending every year. I am especially looking forward to returning to the Broadmoor in Colorado Springs in 2016. Be sure to mark your calendar for the meeting, scheduled for April 17-20, 2016. I will see you there.
CPNP has accomplished much in the past year. The organization has a renewed focus on neuropsychiatric and aspiring neuropsychiatric pharmacists. Strengths of the organization include our educational products especially CPE and BCPP review and recertification. The program and recertification editorial boards have each completed five year plans which have been approved by the board. CPNP has submitted a proposal to BPS to continue as the sole provider of BCPP continuing professional development. Our organization continues to grow with more student chapters, more residents and fellows, and more BCPPs.
Our government affairs activities were minimal just a few short years ago, but now have become a strong pillar in our strategic plan. The CPNP-ACCP coalition is making progress towards CMM (comprehensive medication management) as a pharmacist provided, covered benefit under Medicare Part B. The position paper, “Improving medication-related outcomes for patients with psychiatric and neurologic disorders: Value of psychiatric pharmacists as part of the health care team” has been well received and widely distributed. The substance abuse task force has published “NALOXONE ACCESS: A practical guide for pharmacists.” Many organizations in pharmacy have made this document available to their members. CPNP has received recognition as a player in the treatment of substance use disorders by SAMHSA, American Society of Addiction Medicine and others. The substance abuse task force continues to make progress towards qualified clinical pharmacists having the ability to prescribe buprenorphine under collaborative drug therapy management agreements.
Starting with the January 2015 issue, the Mental Health Clinician is now a professional, fully peer reviewed online journal published through Allen Press. In addition, CPNP launched online communities this year to enable networking and customize the CPNP experience to individual member needs.
CPNP continues to be in a strong financial position, even with increased investments in publishing and government affairs.
CPNP still faces many challenges with the potential to turn them into opportunities. CPNP has financial reserves that far exceed required amounts. But we anticipate decreased financial support from industry at the same time that we expect increases in expenses for government affairs, staffing and education. We anticipate these trends will require some use of reserves, at least for the next few years.
Outside of the specialty, CPNP is not well known. We will be increasing our self-promotion efforts this next year, especially in social media.
Transitioning the CPNP website so that it is mobile friendly is past due. Greg Payne has developed a comprehensive IT plan to address this and other IT concerns. This will also be a resource consuming project.
We anticipate that progress in government affairs will continue to be slow and not always apparent to our members.
It has been an honor to serve as the members of CPNP as President for 2014-2015. I know that the future of CPNP is bright, especially under the leadership of President-Elect Ray Love and incoming President-Elect Chris Thomas. I am confident that CPNP has the right people in place to move the organization forward.