The APhA Annual Meeting & Exposition is a comprehensive meeting for pharmacy professionals and future leaders in pharmacy where you can learn about leadership, career opportunities, and patient safety from nationally recognized experts. The 2018 Annual Meeting is held March 16-19 in Nashville, Tennessee.
What you can expect at this year’s conference
Stage Set for the APhA Annual Meeting in Music City!
The American Pharmacists Association (APhA) 2018 Annual Meeting & Exposition opens in Nashville, Tennessee, on Friday, March 16 and runs through Monday, March 19. The meeting, themed "Leading Our Communities in Patient Care," is a call to action that challenges pharmacists to act courageously and collectively to create productive changes in the profession. During the Opening General Session on Saturday, March 17, 2017-2018 AShP President Nancy Alvarez, PharmD, BCPS, FAPhA, will report how pharmacists are implementing her call to show how they care about patients and communities and how they exhibited leadership amid the natural disasters and a devastating influenza season. Dr. Alvarez will also convey how pharmacists are close to achieving provider status recognition under Medicare as they expand their roles in immunization, chronic disease management, pain management, and lessening the impact of opioid abuse.
The meeting, emceed once again by Mark Walberg, takes place at the Music City Center and features over 100 learning opportunities to increase attendees' value and make big strides in their professional development, with the potential to earn up to 20 CPE credit hours. The convention affords numerious opportunities to network with peers and learn about innovative business and clinical concepts at sessions, product theatre luncheons, and collaborative workshops.
Keynotes Cover Palliative Care, Digital Communities
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In the Opening General Session Keynote Presentation titled "Walking a Mile in Your Patient's Shoes" on Saturday, March 17, B. J. Miller, MD, assistant clinical professor of medicine at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF), will relate how accessing effective and comprehensive healthcare is especially challenging for patients with multiple chronic conditions and functional limitations. This patient population, Dr. Miller contends, is more likely to report unmet medical needs, less likely to report good patient-provider relationships, and more likely to have more expensive healthcare costs. Understanding patients' healthcare system experience enables providers to better respond to patient needs and develop more meaningful relationships. An expert on end-of-life and palliative care, Dr. Miller is an attending specialist for the Symptom Management Service of the UCSF Helen Diller Comprehensive Cancer Center, one of the country's first outpatient palliative care clinics.
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Increasingly, patients with chronic health conditions flock to online communities to share their common experiences living with disease. In this way, newly diagnosed patients can improve their outcomes by connecting with and learning from others around the globe who are facing similar health challenges. In the Second General Session titled "Digitally-Connected Patients Are Here. Are You Ready?" on Sunday, March 18, Jamie Heywood, co-founder and chairman, PatientsLikeMe, and founding director, ALS Therapy Development Institute, will discuss how patients find others facing similar afflictions for support and recommendations. A staunch believer in transparency and collaboration, Mr. Heywood is a leader in engaging patients, understanding their needs, and applying entrepreneurial smarts and drive to improve the treatment available to them.
Annual Meeting & Exposition Schedule at a Glance*
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Post Conference Wrap
APhA2018 in Nashville Focuses on Leadership
Attendees at the recent American Pharmacists Association (APhA) Annual Meeting & Exposition heard over 100 educational presentations covering topics from provider-status legislation to enhancing patient care and health outcomes through innovative, collaborative partnerships. Echoing the meeting's overarching theme, "Leading Our Communities in Patient Care," APhA President Nancy Alvarez, right, acknowledged the profession for exhibiting leadership during natural disasters and a record-breaking influenza season. Read more.
Session Details Immunization Developments
In the APhA2018 educational session titled, "Your Annual Immunization Update," leading experts in pharmacy-based immunization delivery cover the latest news in vaccination practice and describe developments on the horizon. With new vaccines continually emerging and recommendations frequently changing, it can be challenging for pharmacists and other healthcare practitioners to keep current. Read more.
Keynote Calls for Compassionate Healthcare
Opening General Session Keynote Presenter B. J. Miller, MD, assistant clinical professor of medicine at the University of California San Francisco, right, described his experiences as a patient and a physician to illustrate the challenges posed by an often complex, impersonal healthcare system. Understanding patients' healthcare system experience enables providers to better respond to patient needs and develop more meaningful relationships. Read more.
Pharmacists and Physicians Team Up
In a session titled, "Meaningful Collaboration Between Pharmacists and Physicians to Improve Quality and Meet Patient Needs," presenters discuss their takeaways from successful collaborations between physicians and pharmacists. Many physicians are interested in working with pharmacists to improve the health of their patients and ease the workload in their practices, but they might not fully realize the capabilities of pharmacists or how to employ or contract with them. Read more.
