ISMP Announces Annual Awards Recipients

The Institute for Safe Medication Practices (ISMP) is proud to announce its annual awards winners. The institute’s annual awards dinner will be held on Tuesday, December 9, 2014, at the Astor Classics Event Center Automotive & Communication Museum in Anaheim, California. For more information, visit www.ismp.org/Cheers/.

The George DiDomizio Industry Award was established in 2012 in memory of a late ISMP Board member who served as a medication safety advocate within the pharmaceutical research and development community. The award is being given this year to the Global Enteral Device Supplier Association (GEDSA) for taking on the mammoth task of bringing together device manufacturers, distributors, and suppliers worldwide to help reduce the risk of tubing misconnections. GEDSA, a nonprofit trade association based in Columbus, Ohio, developed the Stay Connected initiative to help U.S. and international healthcare organizations transition to new proposed ISO standard connectors for enteral feeding tubes that will be incompatible with IV tubing. Stay Connected offers healthcare professionals free tools and resources to prepare for the implementation of the new enteral connectors, which are expected to be made available in the United States at the beginning of 2015. All materials are available for free through the initiative’s website, http://stayconnected2014.org/get-ready.html.

The ISMP Lifetime Achievement Award is being presented to Janet Woodcock, MD, director of the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER) at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). During her more than 25 year career with FDA, Dr. Woodcock has stepped up the agency’s focus on drug safety by assuring proactive risk assessment and requiring implementation of prevention strategies for new products. She also has supported the drug safety initiatives of the Division of Medication Error Prevention and Analysis (DMEPA) and the Office of Surveillance and Epidemiology (OSE, formerly Office of Drug Safety). Dr. Woodcock launched the “Safety First” and “Safe Use” initiatives designed to improve drug safety management within and outside FDA, respectively. She has received numerous honors, including a Presidential Rank Meritorious Executive Award, Distinguished Career Award from the Drug Information Association, and Distinguished Service and Leadership Award from the Food and Drug Law Institute.

The ISMP’s Cheers Awards honor individuals, organizations, and companies that have set a standard of excellence for others to follow in the prevention of medication errors and adverse drug events. The winners of this year’s awards are:

American Association of Poison Control Centers (AAPCC), McNeil Consumer Healthcare, and Scholastic

Alexandria, VA; Fort Washington, PA; New York, NY

AAPCC and McNeil Consumer Healthcare together with Scholastic have created OTC Literacy, a free educational program designed for use by 5^th and 6^th grade teachers and students. OTC Literacy helps students to understand and use Drug Facts labels, identify safe storage locations for OTC medicines, recognize unsafe situations involving OTC medicines, and identify the 1-800 Poison Help number. The program was tested with a pilot group of 25 teachers who taught 1,100 students and used pre- and post quizzes to evaluate the knowledge they gained. Lesson plans, printed resources, assessment tools and more are available for free download at: www.scholastic.com/otcliteracy. OTC Literacy has been sent to more than 200,000 educators and families over the last three years, and it is estimated that it has been implemented thousands of times. Support for development of the program was provided by McNeil Consumer Healthcare. 

Daniel Hussar, RPh, PhD

Remington Professor of Pharmacy, Philadelphia College of Pharmacy at the University of the Sciences

Philadelphia, PA

Dr. Hussar is being honored for his passionate medication safety advocacy work. He is the author of The Pharmacist Activist, a free monthly newsletter that publishes thought-provoking editorials on major issues in pharmacy. Hussar, along with fellow honoree Fred Mayer, was one of the first healthcare professionals to recognize the need to remove tobacco products from retail pharmacies. He has been involved in professional organization leadership, including serving as a past member of the Board of Trustees for the American Pharmacists Association and as a past President of the Drug Information Association and Pennsylvania Pharmacists Association. He is a contributing editor to the Journal of the American Pharmacists Association (JAPhA) and the author of New Drugs and Comparison Ratings, a unique reference on therapeutic agents being introduced in the United States.

Fred Mayer, RPh, MPH

President, Pharmacists Planning Service, Inc. (PPSI)

San Rafael, CA

Fred Mayer has been the architect of more than 40 national health campaigns and awareness events. As the CEO of PPSI, a nonprofit organization promoting consumer public health education, he has advanced many medication safety-related concerns, including safety caps on prescription vials and poison prevention. He has worked tirelessly to ban the sale of cigarettes in retail pharmacies. In the early 1990s, Mayer circulated a citizens’ petition to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) demanding that it increase the regulation print size on over-the-counter (OTC) drug warning labels to make them more legible for seniors. Mayer has been honored with numerous awards, including the Flowers Heritage Foundation’s Champion in Public Health Award and the Pharmacy Foundation of California’s Michelotti Public Health Prize.

Sheldon Sones, RPh, FASCP

President, Sheldon S. Sones and Associates

Newington, CT

Sheldon Sones is being honored for his efforts to prevent medication errors in ambulatory surgical centers (ASCs). As a consultant, he visits over one hundred ASCs in the New England area as well as other states to identify and document safety issues, and also serves as President of the Connecticut Patient Safety Organization. Sones uses the information he gathers to publish PHARM-ASC: A Weekly Dialogue on Safe Practices in Ambulatory Surgical Centers. The newsletter, now in its eighth year, reaches a multidisciplinary audience of more than 7,500 health professionals. Sones has been active in pharmacy organizations on both the state and national level, and has received many professional practice awards, including the American Society of Consultant Pharmacists (ASCP) Research and Education Foundation National Leadership in Education Award. He also is widely published and serves on the editorial board of two leading ambulatory surgical publications.

University of Michigan and Michigan Pharmacists Association (MPA)

Ann Arbor, MI and Lansing, MI

The University of Michigan Health System and College of Pharmacy has collaborated with MPA and the FDA to assess the safety risks posed by variability in compounding of oral liquids for pediatric patients. The two organizations created a project, funded through the FDA Safe Use Initiative, to help standardize the concentrations of more than 100 compounded medications. A survey was sent to Michigan pharmacies to identify key medications and concentrations being compounded; an expert panel from MPA evaluated the results and developed a set of voluntary standards that were endorsed by pharmacists and prescribers. The standards were disseminated to hospitals, community pharmacies, and other care providers throughout Michigan. They have also been shared nationally with pediatric, pharmacy, and medication safety organizations. A website was created (www.mipedscompounds.org) that describes the initiative and provides access to the standards along with other tools and references for download.