Five for Friday April 11: Celebrating Success in Advancing Medication Use Quality
Welcome to Five For Friday!
PQA is requesting self-nominations from individuals at PQA member organizations to serve on a Health Plan Measure Concept Advisory Group (MCAG). This group will help shape PQA’s health plan quality measure development efforts and pipeline in 2026 and beyond.
The composition of this group will reflect PQA's multi-stakeholder membership and include individuals with clinical, technical, and other quality measurement expertise, as well as individuals who represent patient, caregiver, and patient advocate perspectives. Learn more about the MCAG below.
We also highlight our members' perspectives on annual wellness visits, pharmacy care models and point-of-sale verifications.. If you have news you'd like for us to spotlight in an upcoming Five For Friday, send us an email!
-- Noel Baham, MPH, PQA Manager of Performance Measurement
Researchers from the University of Pittsburgh School of Pharmacy examined how community pharmacist referrals translated to the acceptance and completion of annual wellness visits (AWVs). With the help of a community pharmacy referral process, the number of patients that accepted and completed AWVs significantly increased when compared with previous data, according to the study in JAPhA Practice Innovations.
Implementing New Pharmacy Care Models
Retail pharmacies seek to improve patient outcomes by driving incremental revenue with new care models. Pharmacies continue to expand their reach into new models of health care, in many cases partnering with payers to monitor and treat patients with specific conditions. PQA members Cencora, CPESN, Health Mart Atlas, McKesson, PQS by Innovaccer, Thrifty White, Walgreens and Walmart are featured in this story.
Evaluating Point-of-Sale Diagnosis Verification
New research conducted by Navitus Health Solutions investigates the effectiveness of an automated point-of-sale system for verifying diagnoses for glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) receptor agonists among individuals with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). Researchers compared this approach to traditional utilization management strategies, analyzing pharmacy claims data to assess impact on medication utilization, costs and patient access.
Health Plan Measure Concept Advisory Group 
The PQA Health Plan MCAG will be composed of 20-25 subject matter experts from PQA’s membership, and three additional individuals representing patients, caregivers, and patient advocates, that serve in a time-limited fashion.
Patients, caregivers and patient advocates provide unique and valuable insights about what is important and meaningful in medication use, which supports the development of appropriate and useful quality measures. A new blog details how PQA supports the patient perspective. Patients, caregivers and patient advocates should use this form to submit their nomination.
Self-nominations for the MCAG can be made now through Tuesday, May 6. Individuals at PQA member organizations can access the nomination form via the Member Resources Library.
If you have questions about the opportunity for patients, caregivers and patient advocates, contact PQA at [email protected]. If you are a PQA member and have questions about the MCAG, email [email protected].
Your Next Engagement Opportunities
Network, Learn and Collaborate with PQA
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Join us at the 2025 PQA Annual Meeting, May 19-21, at the JW Marriott Tampa Water Street in Tampa, Fla. PQA's collaborative approach makes it the meeting the preferred destination for quality improvement professionals. Early registration ends Monday, April 21!!
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PQA's 2nd Quarter 2025 Stakeholder Advisory Meeting is June 11, 1-2 pm ET. PQA SAMs are members-only events that are held quarterly to share current and relevant measure development and maintenance updates. The registration link is in the Member Resources Library.
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Save the date for the 2025 PQA Leadership Summit, November 13-14 in Arlington, Va. The summit convenes thought leaders, key decision makers, and quality stakeholders to interactively and collaboratively develop strategies to improve medication use quality and is an invitation-only event.