Prescribing authority for pharmacists

Abstract

One of the recommendations approved at the Pharmacy Practice Model Initiative Summit was as follows: “Through the credentialing and privileging process, pharmacists should include in their scope of practice prescribing as part of the collaborative practice team.”1 There have been a few noteworthy publications in AJHP describing the evolution of pharmacist prescribing. In 1998, Boatwright2 described the legal responsibilities inherent in this authority. In 2001, Clause et al.3 described prescribing privileges for pharmacists in U.S. Veterans Affairs hospitals. In 2007, Dole et al.4 described pharmacist prescribing under the 1993 New Mexico Pharmacist Prescriptive Authority Act, which permitted pharmacists with advanced training in physical assessment and board certification as pharmacotherapy specialists to prescribe and authorize refills, including those for controlled substances, without physician cosignature; obtain Drug Enforcement Administration numbers and institutional provider numbers; and bill for services. In 2008, Yuksel et al.5 described the steps taken to enable independent pharmacist prescribing in Alberta, Canada.