Have you made your plans to attend the 2024 PQA Annual Meeting? This year's meeting will be held in Baltimore from May 14 -16. Early registration ends Friday, April 19; register today to take advantage of the member discount!

You won’t find many national meetings featuring the cross-sector collaboration that defines PQA’s approach to improving medication use quality. Each year, 500 individuals from pharmacies, health plans, health care providers, pharmacy benefit managers, biopharmaceutical companies, technology vendors, government agencies, and more gather to learn, connect and address quality medication use at the annual meeting.

PQA’s Director of Education, Amanda Ryan, joined the PQS Quality Corner Show to discuss the 2024 PQA Annual Meeting and what attendees can expect this year.

Actionable Insights on New Developments and Best Practices

PQA intentionally designs the annual meeting so attendees can gain actionable insights on new developments and best practices in medication use quality. This year, our general sessions will cover:

• Creating Prepared Minds to Advance Value-Based Care
• Improving Medication Access and Affordability: The IRA and Medicare
• Staying Ahead of the Curve: New Developments in Medicare Quality
• Taking Medication Therapy Management to the Next Level

“Our first general session is focused on behavior change in value-based care. Louise Keogh Weed, from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, will discuss change management and creating prepared minds to provide opportunities for success in changing healthcare across the board. Then we're going to transition into a conversation that’s going to discuss what we as individuals can do, how we can look at our own behaviors and use that to advance value-based care. So perhaps a little bit of a different twist on a value-based care conversation than what attendees have heard before.”

Pharmacy Continuing Education

Days two and three of the annual meeting will feature 12 different breakout sessions. These sessions will offer pharmacists continuing education and cover topics like payer-pharmacy partnerships, social determinants of health and value-based care.

“We like to offer a variety of topics in these sessions as well as a variety of presenters so that people not only understand the topics from their own perspective, but from other perspectives as well. So, if they come from a health plan, they might hear another health plan talking about a particular topic, or they might hear from a technology company talking about a similar topic and go hey, how could we potentially partner on something like this?”

New for this year, PQA is partnering with the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) to offer Building Quality Improvement Skills for Quality Medication Use: A PQA & IHI Continuing Education Seminar. In response to member organizations’ requests to expand PQA’s educational offerings in this area, this seminar will help attendees learn how to enhance medication use quality and ensure patient safety through quality improvement. Participants will discover the model for improvement, a simple yet powerful framework for planning, testing, and implementing changes that lead to better outcomes.

You can also start earning CE before the meeting officially starts! PQA staff will host a pre-meeting program, Medication Use Quality: PQA Live CE Event, on Tuesday, May 14, from 8:00 a.m.-12:00 p.m. This event is ACPE accredited for 4 hours of CPE and will help build foundational knowledge into medication use quality.

Networking and Collaboration

Across the meeting, there are numerous opportunities to build business relationships and forge new partnerships in quality. From networking meals and breaks, the industry showcase, the 2024 PQA Annual Meeting poster session, sponsored by PQS, and the Laura Cranston Quality Awards Reception.

“One thing we consistently hear from our attendees is how much they really appreciate being able to network with one another. We are also very intentional about this when we develop the agenda as far as making sure there are networking times throughout. Whether that's a formal reception or visiting the Baltimore Orioles stadium right across the way with folks from the meeting.”

There are also plenty of opportunities for students, fellows and residents to network and engage at the 2024 PQA Annual Meeting.

• The 2024 PQA Annual Meeting poster session, sponsored by PQS student posters
• First-Timers Session, sponsored by Novo Nordisk
• Healthcare Quality IQ (HQIQ), sponsored by PQS
• Diversity in Quality Scholarships for students

Check out the full interview with the PQS Quality Corner Show. We can’t wait to see you all in Baltimore!