Best Poster Competition Alumni: Tavan Parker, PharmD
Since 2002, the AMCP Foundation Best Poster competition has recognized excellence in poster submissions and presentations at AMCP's national meetings. With our funding partner, CVS Health, we are pleased to showcase former Best Poster award recipient Tavan Parker, PharmD.
Name: Tavan Parker, PharmD
Current Position: Clinical Pharmacy Coordinator for SelectHealth
Best Poster Competition Year: 2020
What is your role today and your responsibilities?
I’m currently a Clinical Pharmacy Coordinator for SelectHealth. I am the category lead over a number of therapeutic areas with responsibilities that include presenting and making recommendations for coverage to the SelectHealth P&T committee, creating prior authorization and step therapy requirements, evaluating rebate contracts, reviewing newly approved medications, and more. I love that my job forces me to stay on the cutting edge of our ever-changing profession.
What types of managed care practices do you use in your work?
Essentially everything I do in my position is directly tied to managed care principles. As Clinical Pharmacy Coordinators, our goal is to manage a formulary that ensures evidence-based, cost-effective use of medications. We are continuously evaluating our coverage and policies to stay up to date with current literature, guidelines, and pricing opportunities to maintain quality and affordability for our members.
What was it like to participate in the Best Poster Competition?
I’ll be honest, I did not submit my poster with the intent to win the Best Poster Award. It was fun to analyze data from the work we had performed and demonstrate positive results like we did, especially with my personal interest in biosimilar products. I was proud of what we had accomplished and was excited to share it back in October 2020. My experience would still have been very positive even if it wasn’t followed with a Best Poster Award.
What do you recall about that experience and any specific insights from competing in the Best Poster Competition?
My experience was during some of the peak COVID-19 restrictions, so it was a completely virtual conference and poster competition. However, I still had plenty of opportunities to discuss the work with fellow managed care colleagues and answer questions. I’ve also had follow-up opportunities to present my work in AMCP webinars and it’s been a great experience all around. If anyone feels like they have an idea they’d like to research and present on, do it! You never know what may come of it.
How did the Best Poster Competition prepare you for your role today?
My project directly relates to what I do on a day-to-day basis. Being given the time to then retroactively evaluate medication use decisions and the clinical and economic outcome for patients and the health plan was very rewarding. It’s something I can continue to draw back on when making future formulary and coverage decisions.
What advice do you have for pharmacy students and/or residents?
If you have any interest at all in managed care, get involved in AMCP! And even if you don’t, get involved in AMCP! I did not plan on ending up in this niche of pharmacy, but I love what I do. Had my career path taken me elsewhere in pharmacy, I would have been grateful for the knowledge and experience that AMCP provided during my education. Understanding managed care principles and the end-to-end process of medication use is invaluable as a pharmacist. I would encourage all to participate in the P&T Competition, obtaining the Fundamentals of Managed Care Certificate, submitting research abstracts and posters, attending conferences, etc.
A few simple decisions to take an internship at a health plan and enroll in the managed care elective at my college of pharmacy has led to a rewarding career that I wouldn’t have found otherwise.