Health care policy/system Pharmacist

About the Author Dr. West is an Associate Professor at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences College of Pharmacy. She received a B.S. in pharmacy and a Ph.D. in pharmacy administration from the University of Mississippi. She coordinates the community pharmacy management course and teaches pharmaceutical policy in the health care system. Dr. West serves as a pharmacy consultant for the Arkansas Foundation for Medical Care and the Arkansas State Employee Insurance Group and is the faculty liaison for the National Community Pharmacists Association student chapter. Her research interests pertain to understanding provider and patient behavior to improve medication use and advance community practice. 

Drug Formulary. System—an ongoing process whereby ti health care organization, through its physicians, pharmacists, and other health care professionals, establishes policies on the use of dmg products and therapies that are the most medically appropriate and cost-effective to best serve the health interests of a given population. ... 

The federal government has experimented with various models of pharmacist prescribing.The VA and the IHS appear to have the most liberal policies toward pharmacist prescribing.In the VA, clinical pharmacy specialists are required to have an advanced degree or have completed an accredited residency (e.g., an American Society of Health Systems Pharmacy, ASHP, accredited residency) or specialty board certification (e.g., a Board of Pharmaceutical Specialties, BPS, certification) before they may prescribe medications within their scope of practice. The scope of practice is established within the local VA facility. Once this criterion is satisfied, the clinical pharmacy specialist may function as an independent health care provider. In the IHS, pharmacists can be credentialed to provide primary care and use their prescriptive authority to evaluate and manage the care of certain patients. 

The pharmacy profession can offer considerable expertise to the field of HSR. Furthermore, recent changes in the healthcare system mandate that, as a profession, pharmacy must broaden its focus from individual clinical interventions to include population and system-level interventions and evaluations. The techniques used in HSR provide vital tools for pharmacy to influence health policy and, ultimately, delivery of care. Furthermore, because of their unique skills and perspectives, pharmacists can offer a distinctive knowledge base that can inform HSR. 

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