Amy Werremeyer, PharmD, BCPP
AAPP President
As I prepare the President’s column for this edition of the AAPP Perspective, I am fresh out of a virtual fall retreat with the AAPP Board concentrated on our strategic plan progress. As a reminder, our current strategic plan was approved in late spring of 2021. It is regarded, by far, as the most aggressive strategic plan AAPP has ever adopted and launched us into an entirely new area of profession advocacy. With your help as volunteers and members and your amazing work in your day jobs, AAPP has been scaling these proverbial strategic plan hills and mountains with great passion ever since.
Strategic Plan Achievements
Consider that in 2.5 years, we as an organization have:
- Clarified who we serve and represent with an organizational name change to AAPP.
- Published a vision for the profession.
- Advanced new concepts such as psychotropic stewardship, a core outcome set for psychiatric pharmacists, and an outpatient best practice model.
- Established new committees to tackle new goal areas and address continuous environmental scanning and planning (i.e., our Commission on Innovation and Advancement and our Continuing Professional Development Committee).
- Established staffing plans to grow and retain our staff who have served the organization an average of nearly 12 years and grown from a team of 4 to 6.
- Funded a $500,000 research grant project intended to demonstrate the impact of psychiatric pharmacists starting in 2024.
- Established the continually growing Employer Resource Center.
- Ramped up our regulatory and legislative advocacy.
- Launched our initial, concerted DEI efforts.
- Added numerous task forces and committees providing volunteer opportunities for several hundred members.
- Launched and maintained a successful hybrid Annual Meeting.
- Secured status as the sole BCPP recertification provider for the next 7-year cycle (2024-2030).
What's to Come
Even with all this work, we have 43% of our strategic objectives still in play. These include:
- Significant technology upgrades to reduce our organizational risk and grow our bandwidth.
- An AAPP Fellow program intended to launch in 2024 with Board approval.
- Expansion of awards available through AAPP.
- Expansion of psychiatric pharmacist presentations at interprofessional conferences through our recently launched Ambassador program.
- Succession planning policy and process development for key staff positions.
- Increased educational activities.
- Numerous papers focused on the important role of psychiatric pharmacists in various roles.
- The laying of the groundwork for the next strategic planning cycle, which is expected to generally follow the timeline below.
As I prepared this article, the arduous but rewarding challenge of climbing mountains resonated as a theme for me. Since every great theme needs a great quote, I found one from Nelson Mandela who said, “After climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are many more hills to climb.” To me, this perfectly exemplifies our work as an association. It is never done. There is no finish line. One hundred plus psychiatric pharmacists came together in the late 1980’s to form this association to solve common problems, meet common needs, and accomplish common goals. We tackle them together but those problems, needs, and goals just continue to evolve. With your support, leadership, and manpower, AAPP as your home association, will continue to climb those mountains, pursuing the future while providing value today. Happy Thanksgiving!
