2. COVID & FLU SHOT CLINIC Date: Saturday, January 14, 2023 Time: 12:00 pm - 4:00 pm Location: St. James AME Zion Church (825 Monte Diablo Ave, San Mateo, CA 94401) RSVP: Email George Do at georgedopharm@gmail.com by January 5, 2023
Please email Lena Leung at lenaleunghsu@gmail.com or text 312-927-2929 for additional educational events.
MEMBERSHIP SPOTLIGHT
Brian Pham, Pharm.D., CDE
Dr. Pham is an outpatient clinical pharmacist at VA Palo Alto.
What are you specialized in?
Outpatient pharmacy; Certified Diabetes Educator
What are your hobbies?
I'm an avid chess player - I recently started competing in local over-the-board chess tournaments. When I'm not poring over chess courses and books, I'm either researching personal finance and investing or running with my dog.
What are you most proud of as a pharmacist?
In addition to being the current Legislative Chair for PPA, I am also active and involved with the California chapter of #PizzaIsNotWorking. We are a grassroots movement and social media campaign whose goal is to improve pharmacy workplace conditions and strengthen the voice of pharmacy professionals. We speak out against unsafe working conditions that we face in retail chain pharmacies, and we've done that in a variety of ways: advocating for legislation that improve the well-being of the pharmacy worker, contacting the media to contribute to news stories of burned out and overworked retail pharmacies, and encouraging pharmacists and techs to be active in their local pharmacy associations. I used to work for Walgreens as both a staff pharmacist and pharmacy manager, and have had firsthand experience of the difficulties we face in retail chain stores. So this is a movement very near and dear to me, and I am most proud of my involvement with #PizzaIsNotWorking because I am helping to improve our profession in very unique ways.
What do you hope to achieve through PPA?
I hope to help bring other pharmacists and technicians together in advocacy. As a profession, we are so diverse in our talents and in what we do for our patients. Our wide distribution allows us to impact patient care in many positive ways, but I believe it has also distanced pharmacy professionals too far away from each other. We should strive to join together under a common banner and have a united front to stand for issues that affect us all. Hopefully, our Peninsula Pharmacists Association can be a conduit for that.
-AB2194 (Ward and Lee) –Pharmacists and pharmacy technicians: continuing education: cultural competency -
Requires both pharmacists and pharmacy technicians to complete at least 1 hour of technician cultural competency CE (bill passed) - Effective 01/01/2024 -
- AB 1797 (Weber) – Immunization registry -
Requires, instead of permits, a health care provider and specified entities to disclose certain information from a patient’s medical record, to local health departments and the Department of Public Health - Effective 01/01/2026 -
- AB 1852 (Patterson) – Health facilities: automated drug delivery systems-
Add the use of automated drug delivery systems for pharmacy services to licensed hospice facilities
- AB 1949 (Low) – Employees: bereavement leave-
Workers are entitled to take job-protected, unpaid bereavement leave (up to 5 business days) to mourn the loss of their immediate family member
- AB 2352 (Nazarian) – Prescription drug coverage -
Requires a health plan/insurer to furnish specified information about a prescription drug upon request by an enrollee or insured, or their prescriber
- SB 872 (Dodd) – Pharmacies: mobile units -
Allow a county to operate a mobile pharmacy to provide medications, vaccines, and related services to vulnerable populations lacking access to health services
- SB 923 (Wiener) – Gender-affirming care-
Requires a health plan/insurer to require its staff in direct contact with enrollees or insureds to complete an approved cultural competency training to provide trans-inclusive health care for individuals identified as LGBTQ and to provide information on provider directory and call center with gender-affirming services by July 31, 2023
- SB 1346 (Becker) – Surplus medication collection and distribution-
Allows any county-owned and operated health facility with existing pharmacy services to operate a voluntary drug repository and distribution program for persons with financial needs to increase access to no-cost prescriptions
- #PizzaIsNotWorking Updates
Walgreens will stop using matrix system to evaluate pharmacist work (eg, time taken to fill the prescriptions). However, it is not concrete yet.
PPA BOARD MEETING
1. PENINSULA PHARMACIST ASSOCIATION BOARD MEETING - ONLINE
-ONLINE MEETING ONLY- Date: Wednesday, January 11th, 2023 Time: 7:30 PM - 9:00 PM Location:ZOOM as PRIMARY; GoToMeeting as BACKUP RSVP: email Alan Wilhelmi at alanwilhelmi@gmail.com
Meeting ID: 823 1004 0346 Passcode: 819820
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