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 2023-24 year are now being accepted. You can apply here. Visit our Student Programs page for more information. 

The 2022 PQA Annual Meeting hosted a general session to discuss recent changes across Centers for Medicare & Medicaid (CMS) quality programs and future implications.   

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. 

RAND convened a technical expert panel (TEP) in February 2022 to gather input about potentially developing a measure to capture value-based care arrangements (VBAs) that Medicare Advantage (MA) organizations have with contracted providers. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) could consider including such a measure in future MA and Part D Star Ratings.   

PQA, the Pharmacy Quality Alliance, has begun developing a health plan performance measure for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). 

The PQA Quality Essentials Webinar provides education on the fundamentals of quality measurement, which is important for effective measure implementation and performance, and information about where and how PQA quality measures are used.  

PQA follows a systematic, transparent and consensus-based development process to ensure that measures are important, scientifically acceptable, feasible and usable. However, the measurement lifecycle does not end when a measure is endorsed.  

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. 

Biopharmaceutical innovation has led to an increase in the availability of oral medications to treat cancer. Oral anticancer medications (OAMs) are much more convenient for patients and avoid the inconvenience and administration costs of having to receive treatment at a doctor’s office or outpatient infusion center, allowing patients to self-administer oral medication at home.  One challenge with OAMs however is nonadherence.  Research has shown that almost half of patients on OAMs do not take their medications as prescribed.  

PQA’s Board of Directors represents a diverse group of thought leaders and experts in healthcare, who understand how medication optimization improves patient outcomes and supports a value-based care system. Their expertise helps PQA advance the safe and appropriate use of medicines. This blog is one in a series profiling PQA's Board members.