Charles Caley, PharmD, BCPP
CPNP Foundation Past President
As part of its new strategic plan, the CPNP Foundation has committed to completing a project that has the goal of constructing an online national directory of community mental health pharmacies. This project builds from prior work completed by psychiatric and community pharmacists, and one CPNP Foundation project.
In April 2010 at the CPNP Annual Meeting in San Antonio, Dr. Brandy Singer received our organization's innovative practice award. Dr. Singer's presentation1 highlighted the efforts that she and her colleagues at 1st Avenue Pharmacy in Spokane, Washington2 were making in the area of providing long-acting antipsychotic injections to mental health center outpatients. Additionally, 1st Avenue Pharmacy was also providing metabolic syndrome monitoring and point-of-care white blood cell testing for clozapine patients. Recognition of these services being provided to patients with mental health care needs was a key foundational piece to the concept of the development of a mental health pharmacy directory since it drew attention to the presence of community pharmacies that were primarily serving individuals with chronic mental health conditions.
In December 2012, the CPNP Foundation, along with its partner NAMI, released the results of a national survey of more than 1,000 NAMI members3 about the relationship they had with their community pharmacist. The intent of the survey was to capture the successes of community pharmacy, but to also identify potential opportunities to strengthen community pharmacy services for individuals with mental health conditions. The CPNP Foundation and NAMI believed that conducting the survey was important because approximately one-quarter of the US population struggles with mental health conditions and are faced with a variety of medication related problems, and because the number of psychiatric pharmacists nationally is relatively small. Therefore, in order for individuals with mental health conditions to be optimally served by the profession of pharmacy, it is essential to engage community pharmacists.
In June 2013, Drug Topics published a brief article co-authored by Drs. Ashlee Riggs and David Pope.4 The article highlighted some of the findings of the CPNP Foundation / NAMI survey in an effort to reinforce the reality that community pharmacy services may not be adequately reaching individuals with mental health conditions. The authors also pointed out that a separate survey4 concluded that community pharmacist were more likely to provide services to patients with asthma than to those with mental illness. This article provided examples of the ways that community pharmacies can serve individuals with mental health conditions such as offering patient education and providing screenings for depression.
The CPNP Foundation has recently made the development of a national directory of community mental health pharmacies a strategic priority. This directory will serve multiple purposes. It will be an opportunity to recognize community pharmacies and pharmacists who specifically deliver services to individuals with mental health conditions. It will be an opportunity for psychiatric pharmacists to begin considering how best to develop stronger working relationships with community pharmacists. And it will also be an opportunity for pharmacists, as a profession and as health care team players, to begin broadening their contributions to improved treatment outcomes for our patients.