WASHINGTON, Aug. 22, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — The American Pharmacists Association (APhA) Foundation today announced the recipients of the 2024 Pinnacle Awards.

Established in 1998, the Pinnacle Awards celebrate significant contributions to the medication use process leading to enhancements such as increasing patient adherence, reducing adverse drug events, promoting the use of national treatment guidelines, improving patient outcomes, and enhancing communication among the members of the health care team.

“The APhA Foundation has the great pleasure of recognizing this year’s Pinnacle award recipients,” said Benjamin Bluml, RPh, APhA Foundation Executive Director and Senior Vice President, Research & Innovation. “These individuals and organizations are community champions of continued medication use improvement and quality care.”

2024 Pinnacle Award Recipients and Categories

Michael E. Klepser, PharmD, FCCP, FIDP
Category I: Individual Award for Career Achievement presented to an individual who has demonstrated exceptional leadership in enhancing health care quality and medication use.

Klepser has been in practice for more than 30 years. He has been a professor at the Ferris State University College of Pharmacy since 2001 and is an adjunct faculty at the University of Nebraska College of Pharmacy. Klepser is the founder and Director of The Collaboration of Advance Pharmacy Enterprises (CAPE). Under CAPE, Klepser works with numerous enterprises to improve quality of and patient access to care.

Dispensary of Hope
Category III: Award presented to Voluntary Health Agencies, Nonprofit Organizations, Associations, Government Agencies or Public/Private Partnerships that demonstrated approaches to assist patients and their caregivers in achieving better outcomes from their medications.

Nashville-based nonprofit, Dispensary of Hope, has been actively operating and building a national model of medication access for the most vulnerable for over a decade. Dispensary of Hope is comprised of a network of dispensing sites, focused on a shared mission to provide vital medication access to low-income and uninsured individuals across the United States. This innovative model unifies pharmaceutical manufacturing and safety net health care delivery with a common goal of saving and transforming lives.

The Innovations in Pharmacy Practice Lecture will be delivered by both Michael E. Klepser, PharmD, FCCP, FIDP, and Hillary Blackburn, PharmD, MBA, the Chief Pharmacy Officer of Dispensary of Hope.

Support for the APhA Foundation Pinnacle Awards Program is provided by an educational grant from Merck.

SOURCE American Pharmacists Association Foundation