Charles Caley, PharmD, BCPP
CPNP Foundation Past President
For approximately one year, the CPNP Foundation has been engaged in development of a website that will serve as a national directory of community pharmacies which have a mission to serve the mental health population. This project is a natural extension of the earlier Walgreens-funded survey which was a joint research effort between the CPNP Foundation and the National Alliance on Mental Illness. This website directory project has been generously supported by Otsuka and also involves our website development partners at GuideMark Health. The website is scheduled to launch during the summer of 2015.
During the discovery phase of the project, we had the opportunity to talk with many community-based pharmacists providing care to patients living with mental illness. For example, the February 2015 edition of Kaleidoscope highlighted the work of Dr. Brandy Singer at 1st Avenue Pharmacy in Spokane. Additionally, we have had discussions with: several representatives from Genoa, a company which operates pharmacies embedded within mental health centers as well as Susan Hahn, PharmD, BCPP who is the director of pharmacy programs at the Mental Health Center of Denver, Ashlee Riggs, PharmD who is the owner of Barney’s Pharmacy in Augusta, GA located adjacent to Serenity Behavioral Health, and Kerry Klajbor, RPh, MS, BCPP who is the pharmacy manager at Strong Ties Pharmacy in Rochester, NY. When our website goes live, these and many other pharmacies in the directory will be searchable by their location and by the services they offer to patients.
A key finding from the CPNP Foundation–NAMI survey was that although many patients had very good or excellent experiences with their community pharmacists, some did not because, for example, the pharmacy did not offer private counseling areas or was too busy for the patient to even approach the pharmacist. The CPNP Foundation believes that patients should have consistent access to community pharmacies and pharmacists who can offer private and empathic care, and if certain locations cannot offer this, then patients should consider finding a pharmacy that does.
We believe that a national directory of mental health pharmacies will serve multiple purposes. First and foremost, it will be a valuable resource for patients and providers who are searching for a community pharmacy with a mission to meet their individualized needs. Second, it will present an opportunity for psychiatric pharmacists to begin to consider how to develop stronger working relationships with community pharmacists, so that as a profession and as health care team players, they can coordinate and broaden their contributions to improved treatment outcomes. Third, it will be an opportunity for the CPNP Foundation to recognize community pharmacies and pharmacists who deliver the critical pharmacy care services that individuals living with mental illness require.