As I watched the election returns last night, I recalled Election Day in 2008. It was an important day for our country, and a little selfishly, it was important to me. That day, the APhA Board of Trustees hired me to serve as our Association’s new CEO.

Almost immediately, while working in transition with my predecessor John Gans, we went to work with other national pharmacy organizations developing and implementing principles for health care reform that we pursued throughout the debate, passage, and now implementation of the Affordable Care Act.

Today, we’re seeing progress, although it can be painfully slow at times! We’re seeing a growing awareness that pharmacists’ services are an opportunity, if not yet a necessity in the eyes of policy makers. Pharmacists are increasingly recognized as solutions to problems with transitions of care, “never” events in hospitals, and optimization of medication use for millions of patients with chronic disease.

We now know that President Obama has been re-elected and that implementation of the Affordable Care Act will likely proceed as planned. During this process, APhA is committed to pursuing greater engagement of pharmacists’ clinical services in federal programs, state Medicaid programs, and private plans. I think we’ll find that other organizations are similarly focused and willing to work together as we did throughout the last 4 years. That willingness to collaborate will be key. More importantly, we’ll need the continued support of pharmacists in all practice settings.

Thanks to so many of you who have been supportive the last 4 years. We’re just getting started!