KSP Celebrates Five Years of Dedicated Service to Providing Specialty Medications for Complex Diseases Throughout Michigan, Indiana and Ohio
KSP, McLaren’s Specialty Pharmacy, is celebrating its fifth anniversary this year at its Troy location, a notable milestone in its journey toward providing patients with necessary medications. Since its inception, KSP’s mission has been to provide exceptional patient care and customer service through a panel of expert clinical pharmacy specialists who can assist in drug education and management of not only a patient’s specialty prescriptions but their entire prescription portfolio. Over the past five years, KSP has consistently enhanced the patient experience by expanding services, including more medications to treat more conditions and improving the patient communication system. This milestone is not only a celebration of KSP’s years of service but a testament to its ongoing commitment to patients.
The specialty pharmacy program was implemented at Karmanos Cancer Center in 2018 to provide oncology specialty pharmacy-related services to the newly formed Karmanos Cancer Network. When some Karmanos patients were discharged from the hospital or clinic, they had problems getting their specialty prescriptions outside of the hospital. Due to specific regulations around specialty medications, local pharmacies did not carry these medications.
In 2020, Karmanos Specialty Pharmacy was asked to expand its mission to serve the specialty pharmacy needs of the entire McLaren Health Care system for both oncology and non-oncology disease states. Considering this new direction, Karmanos Specialty Pharmacy rebranded itself as “KSP™, McLaren’s Specialty Pharmacy.” The specialty pharmacy began providing these services from its new location at 711 Stephenson Hwy in Troy.
“We’ve been on a journey not only to fill these specialty medications for oncology patients in Detroit and within the Karmanos Cancer Network but then also to expand into other areas like rheumatology, other types of immune diseases, hepatology or liver disease, hepatitis and a variety of other illnesses,” said Stephen Smith, MS, RPh, FASHP. Smith was the Chief Pharmacy Officer at Karmanos who led the establishment of KSP.
“We contact patients at set intervals along the way because of the severe side effects these agents can cause. We go through a laundry list of questions: ‘How are you feeling? Have you had any nausea?’ We do the physical assessment and targeting based on the drug’s known side effects. This allows us to follow the effects of the drugs and help them manage those side effects effectively,” Smith said. “We are also in direct contact with their providers, so if we see a problem with that medicine, we can quickly make changes.”
KSP can provide many hospitals within the McLaren system with specialized pricing through government programs that have led to the development of patient assistance funds. The specialty pharmacy is constantly experiencing expansion both with the medication it can provide and its delivery process to patients. A new and exciting task for Surender Kanaparthi, FACHE, vice president and Chief Pharmacy Officer at Karmanos.
“We’re looking to expand services at KSP into more non-oncology treatments and to continue offering specialty medications to McLaren patients in Michigan, Indiana and Ohio,” Kanaparthi said. “KSP has been dedicated to delivering quality care to our patients, and I look forward to our service and team growth in the future.”
KSP has a lot to be proud of in the last five years. The Utilization Review Accreditation Commission (URAC) has accredited the specialty pharmacy since 2020. KSP is also accredited by the Accreditation Commission for Health Care (ACHC), which is similar to the URAC and considers all the standards a specialty pharmacy must meet. KSP has gotten special commendations from these organizations for their performance based on metrics in place to improve science. While there is a lot to celebrate about the last five years, KSP is dedicated to providing needed medication to patients for years to come.
Learn more about KSP here.
