Colonel J. Michael Spilker

Pharmacy colleagues,
Summer
has arrived! I hope that you and your family have
a safe and enjoyable season. I am excited to
report that our officer recruiting is having the
best year in recent history and our overall
staffing is nearing 100%. Many of your
efforts have resulted in increased interest from
pharmacists in an Air Force career. I was
exceptionally proud of our participation at the
APHA meeting in Washington DC. In conjunction
with the recruiting service, the Air Force
Pharmacy booth had several pharmacy officers
talking with candidates who expressed an
interest. The area was crowded by those that were
drawn to your professional image and the idea of
serving their country. By the end of the
conference, we had over 300 requests for
additional information about an Air Force career.
My most sincere thanks go out to those who took
time out of your conference schedule to work the
booth and a special thanks to our recruiting
service colleagues and Captain Lusk for organizing
the effort.
Our
efforts at recruiting are closely aligned with our
initiative to provide each officer with a mentor.
Thanks to the many officers that ensured our HPSP
students have an active duty pharmacy officer to
answer their questions while they were in school
and assist with transitioning to their first
assignment. Positive comments abound from these
new officers regarding how helpful this was and
how it remains valuable as they transition to
active duty. Expansion of our mentorship program
to all other pharmacy officers will continue to be
one of my core interests. I encourage each of you
to forward any ideas for expanding and improving
our mentoring program to your flight and MAJCOM
pharmacy leadership. An article I recently read
reported that the reason people withhold ideas is
a sense of futility rather than a fear of
retribution. Although progress towards our
pharmacy goals can seem slow at times, I assure
you that our goal is to keep Air Force pharmacy
practice on the profession’s cutting edge. Our
patients deserve the best and we will deliver that
service to them.
Deployed
pharmacy operations remain a vitally important
concern of mine and I’m scheduled to visit
pharmacies in the AOR this summer. I receive
reports from deployed personnel and regularly
learn about the improvements being made with each
successive rotation. I applaud your efforts and
remain convinced that each deployed pharmacy
should have a combination of a pharmacy officer
and technician to deliver pharmacy services. The
readiness SIG is developing a process to collect
feedback from those that are returning from
deployment so that we can incorporate their
suggestions into our training for future pharmacy
personnel.
I
receive questions frequently about the approaching
TJC deadline for pharmacist review of all
medication orders prior to dispensing. We all
realize that many of our pharmacies do not yet
have sufficient pharmacist manning to accomplish
this requirement 100% of the time on all new and
refill prescriptions. Each of you should review
and adhere to the protocol that was developed for
interim compliance and review all high alert
medications as well as concentrate on review of
all new civilian and MTF prescription orders.
Recently, DoD pharmacy leadership met with TJC
representatives to request an extension of the
deadline for full compliance as well as
clarification of several items in the original
agreement. Our formal request will be submitted
to TJC in mid June and we expect an answer shortly
after that time. I know your top priority remains
the safe delivery of pharmacy services to each of
your customers.
Recently, I attended the BSC Development Team
meeting and want to pass along a few thoughts on
career development. First, once you have been
promoted to a new rank, finish your PME within the
first year after pin on. Especially if you want
to be competitive for a BSC Executive position,
you should get your PME done in this time frame.
Second, when Associate Chiefs review your desires
for your future career track, we are reviewing the
input from you and your commander via the ADP at
the AFPC website. If you have current information
and narratives in your record it is a great help
to us. If your input is not current, we have
little way of producing a meaningful vector for
your future. You and your commander should update
this information each year. Finally, if you have
not had a lot of experience writing OPRs or medal
packages, seek out a peer or mentor that can
assist you. The art of turning your many amazing
accomplishments into an OPR bullet with impact is
a learned talent. I still am very grateful to
Colonel (ret) Ray Wilkins who took the time to
teach all of his officers how to acquire and
develop this skill. We have many pharmacy
officers who have well developed writing skills
and I know they are willing to help you develop
yours as well.
As
good stewards of tax payer dollars, we must
optimize our use of contract medications and
vigorously utilize the best pharm reports to
purchase medications from the most cost effective
source. To track our progress, we have started
collecting and analyzing contract compliance of
each MTF in an effort to identify those pharmacies
that are doing exceptionally well in compliance so
that they might assist those locations that are
not doing as well. The Air Force Audit Agency is
currently looking at our progress in this regard
as well. Our goal is 100% compliance with all
contract medications at every facility when those
contract items are available from the contracted
source. In addition, I want to identify to our
DSCP partners those contracted pharmaceuticals
that are frequently not available and require us
to purchase a non-contract item in order that our
patients have their medications. I know that if
we work together, we will reach our goal.
In
closing, it is an honor and a privilege to serve
as your Associate Corps Chief and your
representative on pharmacy issues to the Air Force
Surgeon general. I want to thank each member of
our Air Force pharmacy family…pharmacists,
technicians, and volunteers that work hard each
day to make the MTF pharmacy the preferred point
of service for all our beneficiaries.
Updated July 2010