POCP Blog

This past Saturday there was a memorial service for James D. Lang, PharmD, Vice President of Pharmacy Services at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan (BCBSM), who passed away unexpectedly in June. Here is his obituary.

I write this from a remote Brazilian island – where plans were made to visit long ago – and so was unable to attend the memorial. But, thankfully, Bill Hein, who leads our payer/provider efforts and also knew James, could represent us. Bill tells me the event was a celebration of James’ life, and that he enjoyed meeting with James’ family and colleagues.

To me, James was a client, mentor and friend. We first met in 2008, after he returned to BCBSM. At the time, I was the project manager for the Southeastern Michigan ePrescribing Initiative (SEMI), personally leading our firms’ program management of the effort. BCBSM was one of several sponsoring healthcare organizations. James came to one of our Steering Committee meetings. Before delegating participation on it, he wanted to see what it was all about for himself. He never handed it off.

We immediately realized that we were like-minded. James shared with me his belief in ePrescribing and how he had tried with several partners and multiple companies to get ePrescribing initiatives going without much success. I assured him that he wouldn’t have the same experience with SEMI because all the pieces were in place, including our program management and ability to work across all stakeholders.

With the help of the rest of the coalition — General Motors, Ford, Chrysler the Health Alliance Plan/Henry Ford Medical Group, Medco (now Express Scripts), Express Scripts, Catamaran (now OptumRx) and Surescripts — we created a true success story. The SEMI effort resulted in 8,000 physicians who embraced ePrescribing, saved $119 million in drug spend, prevented $11 million in other health care costs, and generated 7.6 million moderate to severe drug interaction alerts for prescribers and pharmacists to review and, where appropriate, intervene. (Click here to learn more about how SEMI changed the face of ePrescribing.)

We had a shared vision for improving healthcare by initially encouraging adoption of ePrescribing, what we called “low-hanging fruit” because there were standards, infrastructure and committed stakeholders, and ePrescribing wasn’t as complex as electronic health records.  This was just one example of his ability to see things before they happened and make life better for Michiganders, specifically, and the US more broadly.

James was one of the first members of the Academy of Managed Care Pharmacy (AMCP) and a board member of the National Association of Specialty Pharmacy (NASP), among others, and a passionate supporter of both. I’d see him at these organizations’ meetings, and he’d always carve out time for me. Sometimes we’d co-present a topic of interest. He shared with me that he got much of his information about where the pharmacy industry was going from these meetings, both broader sessions and one-on-one with people he respected. He was always thinking about how BCBSM could benefit … and lead.

He told me that he spent a great deal of time with BCBSM leadership preparing them for what was likely to happen in the “eMedication Management” ecosystem 3-5 years in the future. Because of these efforts, his vision and success in implementing innovative programs, the executive team put their trust in him. To be sure, James meant a lot to his BCBSM colleagues, the state of Michigan and the industry nationally. He also meant a lot to me.

When James passed last month, we were in the middle of working toward another project – a next step in our shared belief in using health information technology to efficiently and effectively get the right drug to the right patient in the right time frame at the right dosage and duration. I firmly believe that his vision and efforts will be at the center of his legacy and will continue to make a very positive mark on the healthcare community for years to come.

To be sure, BCBSM, Michigan, health care and the eMedication Management segment took a big loss with James’ passing. On behalf of all of us at Point-of-Care Partners, I want to say, rest in peace. On behalf of myself, I want to say, I’m going to miss you, my friend.

• Post Categories
• HIT Leaders