Center for Medication Safety
1st Ave-1, Blk N of Cermak Rd (Bldg 37 Rm 139)
Hines, IL
USA 60141
Email: Fran.Cunningham@va.gov
Disclosure statement:
Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: As Director for the Center for Medication Safety in the Department of Veterans Affairs I am responsible for overseeing all postmarketing surveillance efforts for new drugs entering our system as well as overseeing the entire comprehensive pharmacovigilance program for the Department of Veterans Affairs. I have several medication safety grants and have co-authored several studies and medication safety articles over the past several years. Brief Biosketch is below:
Francesca Cunningham, Pharm.D., is the Director of the Center for Medication Safety, National Center for Patient Safety (NCPS) and Program Director of Outcomes Assessment at the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Pharmacy Benefits Management Services (PBM).
Dr. Cunningham was the driving force behind the successful effort of PBM to establish reliable methods for merging the VA prescription database with other large VA-related databases in order to evaluate the safe and appropriate use of medications in the veteran population. Her focus has been on assessing new agents where safety data is lacking (postmarketing surveillance) and older drugs when a newly emerging danger requires evaluation. Dr. Cunningham designed the VAMedSAFE and PBM Drug Safety Quality Improvement (QI) program. Under her direction the program has become a comprehensive pharmacovigilance program and a major tool in the evaluation of drug safety in the VA and its role in the formulary decision process.
Since her time in the Department of Veterans Affairs, Dr. Cunningham has focused her research efforts in the area of drug safety. Dr. Cunningham’s group has worked independently and with other researchers to perform several drug safety and pharmacoepidemiologic studies. She sits on several internal and external Boards and committees that focus on patient safety with an emphasis on pharmacovigilance and postmarketing surveillance including the newly formed government committee for the Sentinel Initiative.
Any relevant financial relationships? No
I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.