Ten years ago, PQA established a Postdoctoral Executive Fellowship. The program has hosted 13 fellows, and everyone has successfully completed the program and moved into an important industry role, where they are leaders in pharmacy, medication services and quality improvement.

This guest blog is one in a series by sponsors of the 2023 PQA Leadership Summit on EQUIPP enhanced services. The views shared in this series are those of the author and do not reflect any PQA positions.

PQA offers a variety of student and professional programs, including experiential rotations, internships and fellowships. Each is focused on providing health care quality experience to diverse individuals from diverse disciplines.

We are excited to host members in two weeks at the 2023 PQA Leadership Summit and PQA Convenes: Advancing Medication Therapy Management Quality Measurement. This year's summit will advance measure modernization, while the convening event will address the state of MTM practice and opportunities to evolve MTM measurement.

Leadership Summit attendees are invited to participate in both events. PQA Convenes starts at 8:00 a.m. ET on Thursday, November 2, and the summit starts later that day at 3:00 p.m. ET. Learn more about the summit below.

We also highlight our members' perspectives on medication delivery, managing obesity, and connecting medical and pharmacy records. If you have news you'd like for us to spotlight in an upcoming Five For Friday, send us an email! 

PQA has released the entire Medication Use Quality continuing education program and Medication Use Quality Certificate, which is a fully updated version of the program that was initially released in 2020.

The updated program consists of the 15-hour Medication Use Quality Certificate and eight individual courses that are 2 to 3 hours each that deliver the certificate program’s content in segments for convenience. The structure of the updated Medication Use Quality program ensures that learners can take courses that are most relevant to their career paths and at a pace that works for their schedules or the entire certificate program. Learn more about the program below.

We also highlight our members' perspectives on medication adherence in rheumatoid arthritis, adherence in vulnerable populations, and baseline health screenings. If you have news you'd like for us to spotlight in an upcoming Five For Friday, send us an email! 

PQA offers a competitive Advanced Pharmacy Practice Experiential (APPE) Rotation for pharmacy students, which provides experiential learning opportunities in non-profit association management, medication use quality education, communications, research and performance measurement. PQA works with individual students to align their rotation experience with desired career goals and interests. Applications for the 2024-25 year are now being accepted. You can apply here. Visit our Student Programs page for more information. 

PQA is a non-profit organization with 250 diverse members across healthcare. Our members include community and specialty pharmacy organizations, pharmacists and other healthcare providers, pharmacies, health plans, pharmacy benefit managers, life sciences, technology vendors, government agencies, health information technology partners, researchers, accrediting organizations and academia.

Diverse Voices in Quality is a PQA blog series that showcases the successful career paths and experiences of medication use quality professionals from diverse groups at PQA member organizations. A part of PQA’s Diverse Quality Leaders Program, this series celebrates the achievements of our members who reflect our nation’s diversity and provides everyone with insights and inspiration for becoming a leader in quality.

This has been an exciting year for PQA! We continue to play a central role in driving meaningful improvements and positive changes related to medication safety, adherence and appropriate use.

The 2023 PQA Annual Report documents our progress towards Blueprint PQA 2025. It is a collection of accomplishments from September 2022 to August 2023 and captures the efforts of our members and staff over the past 12 months. There are still numerous opportunities to be involved with PQA and impact quality medication use in 2023. Learn more about these opportunities and accomplishments below..

We also highlight our members' perspectives on diversity and accessibility in clinical trials, improving adherence, and adherence to multiple sclerosis medications. If you have news you'd like for us to spotlight in an upcoming Five For Friday, send us an email! 

PQA has released the entire Medication Use Quality continuing education program and Medication Use Quality Certificate, which is a fully updated version of the program that was initially released in 2020.

The Pharmacy Quality Alliance (PQA) seeks interested pharmacy and payer partners to participate in proof-of-concept pilots to implement and test high priority immunization pharmacy measure concepts.

Last week, PQA released an important report, Recommendations to Improve the Quality of Oral Anticancer Medication Use, which we believe is a key step towards improving the quality of care of individuals using oral anticancer medications (OAM).

The uniqueness of OAMs, including complex treatment regimens, variable dosing schedules, and temporary and intentional discontinuation of therapy, present distinct challenges to accurately defining and measuring adherence and persistence. PQA will use our research and measurement expertise to explore OAM adherence or persistence methodologies to inform potential development of a health plan measure. Learn more about this report below.

We also highlight our members' perspectives on research partnerships, access to CGM services, and supporting education and adherence. If you have news you'd like for us to spotlight in an upcoming Five For Friday, send us an email! 

At PQA, you may have noticed that we appreciate sports analogies. Earlier this summer, PQA CEO Micah Cost discussed what baseball and quality measures have in common. In keeping with the baseball theme, PQA is entering the top of the 7^th for 2023, and there is still plenty of time for members to get in the game.

We are excited to announce that registration has opened for the 2023 PQA Leadership Summit and PQA Convenes: Advancing Medication Therapy Management Quality Measurement.

This year’s summit will focus on measure modernization and PQA’s role in the national effort to advance and align measures across providers and value-based programs. This PQA Convenes event is part of a national initiative to advance medication therapy management (MTM) quality measurement and other strategies to evaluate MTM services. Learn more about these events below.

We also highlight our members' perspectives on team-based care, value-based arrangements and pharmacists' role as providers. If you have news you'd like for us to spotlight in an upcoming Five For Friday, send us an email! 

The PQA Quality Forum Webinar is a regular, recurring series on healthcare quality topics with a focus on medication use and medication services. It is a forum for educating and engaging with PQA members and quality-focused healthcare professionals.

The PQA Postdoctoral Executive Fellowship helps produce the next generation of leaders in health care quality through a full-time, 12-month program. Executive Fellows collaborate with PQA staff, members and other stakeholders on a variety of initiatives to improve medication use quality. During the fellowship, individuals will expand their skills and experience in project management, quality measure design and implementation, non-profit administration and association management, and health care quality research.