APhA Policy Manual

Pharmacist’s Role in Patient Safety

EDUCATION, CURRICULUM AND COMPETENCE FOR PHARMACY PHARMACY PRACTICE POST-MARKETING SURVEILLANCE PRESCRIPTIONS AND PRESCRIPTION ORDERS QUALITY ASSURANCE

It is APhA’s position that patient safety initiatives must include pharmacists in leadership roles.
APhA encourages dissemination of best practices derived from nationally aggregated reporting data systems to pharmacists for the purpose of improving the medication use process and making informed decisions that directly impact patient safety and quality.
APhA encourages the profession of pharmacy to continually review and evaluate ways to enhance training, curricula, continuing education and accountability of pharmacists to improve patient safety.
APhA encourages risk management and post-marketing surveillance programs to be standardized and include infrastructures and compensation necessary to allow pharmacists to support these patient safety programs.
APhA supports the creation of voluntary, standardized and interoperable reporting systems for patient safety events to minimize barriers to pharmacist participation and to enable aggregation of data and improve quality of medication use systems. The system should be free, voluntary, non-punitive, easily accessible, and user friendly for all providers within the healthcare system.
APhA supports the elimination of hand-written prescriptions or medication orders.