Hae Mi Choe Wins Award for Statewide Practice Model Implementation
Hae Mi Choe, PharmD, has been honored with this year’s Michigan Society of Health-System Pharmacists (MSHP) President’s Award. The MSHP President’s Award recognizes the commitment of a pharmacy professional or a pharmacy organization to advancing the theme and goal of the MSHP Board of Directors throughout the year. This year, MSHP has focused on provider status and the concept of “Changing Gears.” As the terrain of pharmacy continues to shift, and the direction of the profession heads toward new frontiers, Dr. Choe has established herself as a pioneer in her work to advance the role of pharmacists in the ambulatory care setting.
Dr. Choe has been instrumental in the development and launch of the Michigan Pharmacists Transforming Care and Quality (MPTCQ) Collaborative Process Initiative (CPI) program, a collaboration between Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Michigan (BCBSM) and UMHS which aims to integrate clinical pharmacists into more direct patient care roles. This program, which was modeled after the program Dr. Choe built at UMHS, has brought clinical pharmacy services to 16 health-system or physician group practices throughout the state, which encompasses over 50 individual practice sites, all with a goal of improving patient care through pharmacist-physician collaboration. The program continues to expand, with the intent to implement it in all 46 health-system or physician group practices that work with BCBSM over the next several years.
Dr. Choe is recognized by her colleagues as an incredible innovator as well as a strong supporter through hands on assistance and mentorship of colleagues advancing their practice. They also note she is kind, organized, and approachable. Consistent with this year’s theme, the work Dr. Choe has done, and continues to do, creates a framework for pharmacists to practice as providers to improve the overall care of patients. It also serves as an inspiration and model for future pharmacists to practice in these advanced roles.
Dr. Choe is an associate dean of Pharmacy Innovations & Partnerships and clinical associate professor in the Department of Clinical Pharmacy at the University of Michigan College of Pharmacy and the director of Pharmacy Innovations & Partnerships in the University of Michigan Medical Group. She earned her PharmD in 1993 from the University of California, San Francisco, and completed her pharmacy practice residency with Kaiser Permanente in Los Angeles in 1994. She then spent five years overseas, where she developed and implemented anticoagulation and asthma services for the first time at the Samsung Medical Center in Seoul, South Korea. Professor Choe then joined U-M to develop ambulatory clinical services at the East Ann Arbor Health Center. In her previous leadership role as Director of the Innovative Ambulatory Pharmacy Practices, Professor Choe and colleagues created a group-practice model at 14 of the U-M Hospitals and Health Centers as part of the patient centered medical home. This model is being adopted in the specialty areas. She also developed a new reimbursement process for clinical pharmacy services. She was the first pharmacist endorsed by the Credentialing Committee at the University of Michigan Health System and was granted special privileges in patient care; she has led her entire clinical pharmacist team through the credentialing process.
Dr. Choe has been recognized numerous times throughout her career for both her excellence in teaching as well as for her work in developing innovative practice models. Notably, in 2011 she and her colleagues were awarded both the MPA Innovative Pharmacy Practice Award and the ASHP Best Practice Award for their group practice model in the Patient-Centered Medical Home. In 2014, Dr. Choe received the American Pharmacists Association (APhA) Pinnacle Award in the Individual Career Achievement category.
Download the full press release from the Michigan Society of Health-System Pharmacists.
