ALEXANDRIA, Va. — The Pharmacy Quality Alliance (PQA) has named new members to its board of directors and approved its 2018 executive committee.

Mary Ann Kliethermes, vice chair of ambulatory care and professor at the Midwestern University Chicago College of Pharmacy, will serve as PQA’s chairman for 2018. She succeeds Peter Wickersham, president of government programs at Express Scripts, who has completed five years of service on the board.

Laura Cranston

The new board appointments are Alan Balch, chief executive officer for the Patient Advocate Foundation; Christie Boutte, senior director of federal and state public policy at the National Association of Chain Drug Stores (NACDS); Susan Cantrell, CEO of the Academy of Managed Care Pharmacies (AMCP); Sharon Jhawar, chief pharmacy officer for SCAN Health Plan; Bhavesh Modi, vice president of pharmacy at Healthfirst; Cynthia Pigg, senior vice president and chief pharmacy officer for Gateway Health Plan; Vic Perini, vice president of sales and account management at Accredo Health; and Jason Spangler, executive director of value, quality and medical policy at Amgen.

PQA said the new board members and the 2018 executive committee were approved at its fourth-quarter board meeting.

“As a multistakeholder organization, PQA is pleased to appoint recognized thought leaders with a deep understanding of the changing health care landscape, and new and evolving value-based models to its board,” stated Laura Cranston, CEO of PQA. “Our board is strengthened by the skills and expertise of these individuals and their commitment to our mission of optimizing health by advancing the quality of medication use.”

Besides Cranston, the PQA Executive Committee for next year will include Mitch Betses, executive vice president at CVS Health, as vice chair; David Medvedeff, CEO of VUCA Health, as secretary; Jamie Chan, senior director of the Medicare Stars Program for Blue Shield of California, as member at-large; and Brian Jensen, director of the Community Pharmacy Foundation, as treasurer.

The Pharmacy Quality Alliance represents pharmacy providers, pharmacy benefit managers, health plans, academia, consumer advocates, community pharmacies, health technology vendors, life sciences organizations and other stakeholders interested in improving medication usage for better health. The association helps identify and select metrics for evaluating the quality of the medication use system, provides education on quality improvement, and connects pharmacists to health care improvement initiatives.