VHA's free webinar series aims to help pharmacies 'optimize' services

Texas-based health care corporation VHA, Inc., launched a free webinar series this week, titled “Strategies to Optimize Pharmacy Performance," that is intended to help pharmacy leaders position their pharmacies as strategic assets.

“The webinars are designed for hospital pharmacy leaders who have operational responsibilities and are looking to optimize their practice, so our intent is to educate first and foremost,” VHA Performance Services Vice President of Pharmacy Bruce Weiner said. “We want to share best practices with attendees to implement on their own, as well as demonstrate that we have the internal expertise to work with them (one-on-one) to develop more-specific solutions.”

As a network of not-for-profit health care organizations, VHA can use the experience of its member hospitals to provide a unique perspective on specific challenges faced by pharmacies. Using this perspective is central to the service provided by the webinar series.

VHA hosted its first pharmacy-specific webinar in December. In the wake of the positive response to that session, four more pharmacy-specific webinars were planned for 2015 on topics ranging from the importance of pharmacy networks to the role of health systems in antimicrobial stewardship. Each webinar will be one hour in length, with most of them  dedicated to educating participants.

“We like to include an internal VHA expert, as well as an external expert/professional/member, to provide additional perspective on the topic and share real-world successes to show pharmacy leaders the options that are available to them to overcome barriers they are facing,” Weiner said.

The webinar series will run through late October. VHA also plans to hold another pharmacy-focused webinar series next year based on topics that are timely and relevant to pharmacies in 2016.