About the Award:
The United States Under Secretary of Health Excellence in Pharmacy Practice award honors an individual pharmacist practitioner who has demonstrated excellence in direct patient care of Veterans at a Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) medical facility. Practice settings include outpatient, inpatient, or other clinical settings.
Awardee and brief bio:
In 2023, the United States Under Secretary of Health, Dr. Shereef Elnahal, announced that Dr. Timothy C. Chen was the winner of the USH Excellence in Pharmacy Practice Award.
Dr. Timothy C. Chen is the current and founding director of the VA National Tobacco Cessation Clinical Resource Center (TCCRC), funded in 2009 by the VA Office on Tobacco & Health. The TCCRC is tasked with systemwide training, program development, and dissemination of best practices for tobacco treatment. His initiative to compete for limiting funds (>$3 million) contributed to the development of a collaborative nationwide effort to reduce tobacco use among the Veteran population. Prior to establishment of TCCRC, Dr. Chen developed and implemented an innovative pharmacist-run telephone-based tobacco cessation clinic for Veterans. He has published numerous papers on the pharmacist-run tobacco cessation telehealth clinic that described its implementation [1] and demonstrated its effectiveness at maintaining abstinence.[2] A toolkit was developed as part of the TCCRC providing guidance for implementing pharmacy telephone clinics for tobacco cessation throughout the VA system. Moreover, he has contributed to the exploration of expansion of tobacco cessation treatment to homeless Veterans[3] and enhanced engagement using telephone-based motivational interviewing with Veterans with mental illness.[4] Dr. Chen's foresight and innovation to leverage telehealth technology to deliver tobacco cessation counseling to patients has allowed pharmacists to operate beyond the traditional face-to-face interactions in the past. This has significant implications for healthcare given the demand to use telehealth technology to reach our patients during a pandemic where self-isolation and shelter-in-place laws have limited the face-to-face interactions between patients and their providers.
Dr. Chen has been a preceptor for UC San Diego SSPPS students for over 16 years, and is currently an Associate Professor of Health Sciences at the UC San Diego School of Medicine. Dr. Chen has previously been honored with the SSPPS Office of Experiential Education Preceptor Excellence Award (2021), UC San Diego Outstanding Teach Award (2017), and the Western University of Health Sciences Distinguished Alumni Award (2016).
References
- Harris JE, Chen TC, Kim SB, Nguyen KL. Development of a pharmacist-managed, telephone-based tobacco-cessation clinic for veterans. Am J Health Syst Pharm. 2009;66(18):1610, 1612-1614. doi:10.2146/ajhp080719
- Chen TC, Christofferson DE, Hamlett-Berry K, et al. A tobacco cessation treatment model using telehealth: a pilot evaluation in Veterans. J Telemed Telecare. 2014;20(3):161-163. doi:10.1177/1357633X14527707
- Chen TC, Myers MG. A comprehensive approach to tobacco cessation for the homeless. J Clin Psychiatry. 2015;76(7):e908-910. doi:10.4088/JCP.14com09514
- Myers MG, Strong DR, Chen TC, Linke SE. Enhancing engagement in evidence-based tobacco cessation treatment for smokers with mental illness: A pilot randomized trial. J Subst Abuse Treat. 2020;111:29-36. doi:10.1016/j.jsat.2019.12.012