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After the ICHP Leadership Retreat last November, the attendees of the meeting were committed to focusing on continuing to build and foster our ICHP community. In her TED talk (yes, you know I love TED), Claire Madden spoke of creating a culture of collaborative innovation.1 It is the sweet spot between technology, innovation and collaboration. She spoke to the successes of AirBNB, UBER, and even TED given that these organizations disrupted their respective industries with their ability to innovate by leveraging the collaborative power of the community over a technology platform. I also appreciated her explanation of the three Cs – as people we are designed to connect, contribute and create.

Last year, by majority vote, ICHP voted to disband its House of Delegates. The House of Delegates served the role of identifying issues from its members across the state. Those issues in the form of recommendations would then be assigned to the various ICHP Divisions to be addressed over the year. Given that in today’s world we have numerous channels to communicate directly with our members, ICHP felt it was time to explore different ways of gathering and working on issues or initiatives proposed directly from our members.

I want to invite you to invite you to connect, contribute and create within our ICHP community. Even if you don’t have the time to commit to being a volunteer on a particular division or committee, you can still actively participate in a way that meets your lifestyle. ICHP is only as strong as its members and really the value that our membership provides is based on what we contribute with the great support of our ICHP Staff. If you only have a second – like a post on our Facebook page; only have a minute – post a quick comment; more than a few minutes, but less than an hour – post or respond to a question on ICHP Chat.

ICHP FACEBOOK – Whether you generally love it, hate it or will have nothing to do with it, you can stay connected with ICHP via Facebook. ICHP has a standard business page, which hopefully you have already “liked.” The limitation with the business page is that only the ICHP staff members can post to this page. It’s a great way to see all the latest happenings and upcoming events. Last year, we also created a closed group page. The ICHP closed group page allows any member of the group to post to this page. This is great place to share stories, upload pictures from any of the ICHP events or really to contribute anything that keeps you passionate or maybe even frustrates you about hospital/health-system pharmacy practice.

Have you joined the #PharmacyCares Campaign? Carrie Vogler, Division Director of Marketing Affairs launched the campaign on Facebook to foster storytelling around the great work pharmacists do beyond dispensing medications. Participating is easy, and Carrie outlines the following in her post:

1. Cut and paste the text from her post into a new post. Share a story using video or text of how you touched the life of a patient (no patient names please) using #PharmacyCares #ICHP - I know you have done SOMETHING GREAT - a little thing goes a long way.
   
   
2. COMMIT to visiting a patient and introducing yourself and/or writing a short note to a patient you are caring for RIGHT now. Tell them you care for them and what you are doing to help them. Let’s give pharmacy some friendly faces!
   
   
3. Nominate and TAG 3 other pharmacy friends that care about their patients to do the same - this is how the challenge continues.

ICHP Chat – Was created a few years ago, and we are still working on getting the word out about this networking platform. This is a great place to access the brain trust of ICHP members, many of which have numerous years of experience, are experts in their field, even on a national level. If you are wondering how other hospitals/health-systems are addressing the numerous issues that come your way, use ICHP Chat as a forum to see what other organizations are doing. Why recreate the wheel? Looking for a policy, template or other resource? One of the many things that I love about the healthcare community is that many of us do not mind sharing what we create.

We truly want to hear from you if there are other platforms that would you like to see ICHP explore to build our community of collaborative innovation. Would you join a Facebook Live presentation or use Skype or Google Hangouts for networking, meetings or other unique educational programming?

For almost 54 years, ICHP has strived to connect members and provide opportunities for volunteerism and leadership. As our lives and lifestyles continue to change and adapt with the times, ICHP is ready to do the same – hopefully, with a little innovation.

Reference:

1. Madden C. Creating a culture of collaborative innovation. TEDxQUT. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vaN6FtJ8inA (accessed 2017 April).

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