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Council Adds VA as Member September 10, 1999 Rockville, MD — The National Coordinating Council for Medication Error Reporting and Prevention (NCC MERP) has unanimously accepted the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) as a regular member for a two-year term with full voting privileges. Representatives from the VA who will serve on the Council are delegate Jeff Ramirez, PharmD, chief, Management/Clinical Information, and the alternate delegate, John E. Ogden, chief consultant, Pharmacy Benefits Management. The VA was established in 1930 to consolidate and coordinate government activities affecting war veterans. Its health care system has grown to be the largest integrated system in the United States with 173 hospitals and over 1,000 sites of health care delivery. Council chair, Deborah Nadzam, PhD, RN, FAAN, announced the VA's membership commenting, "The VA brings added dimension to the Council. It is a government agency that is also a health care service provider committed to ensuring patient safety in their system. We welcome the VA's participation in Council deliberations and in the development of recommendations for preventing medication errors." In addition to accepting the VA as a member organization, the Council announced a number of other actions at their June meeting. Nadzam was elected as chair for a second one-year term. Nadzam is the administrative director for the Quality Institute at the Cleveland Clinic Health System. The Council elected a vice-chair for the first time. Jerry Phillips, RPh, the associate director for Medication Error Prevention in the Food and Drug Administration's Office of Postmarketing Drug Risk Assessment, will serve in this capacity. The category of individual member was addressed at the meeting. It was decided that individual members may serve on the Council if they are invited and approved by a unanimous vote of the Steering Committee. An individual member must possess significant interest and expertise in medication error reporting and prevention. Not more than two individual members may serve at one time and each member may serve for no more than two years. An individual member is entitled to the same rights and privileges as the Steering Committee and regular members, except that he/she cannot hold the position of vice-chair. Nadzam is the first person to hold individual membership on the Council. NCC MERP is currently comprised of 19 members: the 14 founding organizations (the Steering Committee); 3 regular member organizations; one individual member; and one ex-officio (non-voting) member. The 17 Council member organizations include: American Association of Retired Persons American Health Care Association American Hospital Association American Nurses Association American Medical Association American Pharmaceutical Association American Society for Healthcare Risk Management American Society of Health-System Pharmacists Department of Veterans Affairs Food and Drug Administration Generic Pharmaceutical Industry Association Institute for Safe Medication Practices Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations National Association of Boards of Pharmacy National Council of State Boards of Nursing Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America U.S. Pharmacopeia For additional information about the Council, its activities or membership, contact chair Deborah Nadzam (216/738-4853), or Council secretary Diane D. Cousins (301/816-8215). © 1998–2008 National Coordinating Council for Medication Error Reporting and Prevention. All Rights Reserved. *Permission is hereby granted to reproduce information contained herein provided that such reproduction shall not modify the text and shall include the copyright notice appearing on the pages from which it was copied.