APhA Policy Manual

1. APhA supports the use of evidence-based medicine as first-line treatment for patients with opioid use disorder, including health care professionals in and out of the workplace, for as long as needed to treat their disease.
2. APhA encourages pharmacies to maintain an inventory of medications used in treatment of opioid use disorder (MOUD), to ensure access for patients.
3. APhA encourages pharmacists and payers to ensure patients have equitable access to, and coverage for, at least one medication from each class of medications used in the treatment of opioid use disorder.

1. APhA advocates for nationwide integration and uniformity of prescription drug monitoring programs (PDMP) that incorporate federal, state, and territory databases for the purpose of providing health care professionals with accurate and real-time information to assist in clinical decision making when providing patient care services related to controlled substances.
2. APhA supports pharmacist involvement in the development of uniform standards for an integrated nationwide prescription drug monitoring program (PDMP) that includes the definition of authorized registered users, documentation, reporting requirements, system response time, security of information, minimum reporting data sets, and standard transaction format.
3. APhA supports mandatory prescription drug monitoring program (PDMP) enrollment by all health care providers, mandatory reporting by all those who dispense controlled substances, and appropriate system query by registrants during the patient care process related to controlled substances.
4. APhA advocates for the development of seamless workflow integration systems that would enable consistent use of a nationwide prescription drug monitoring program (PDMP) by registrants to facilitate prospective drug review as part of the patient care process related to controlled substances.
5. APhA advocates for continuous, sustainable federal funding sources for practitioners and system operators to utilize and maintain a standardized integrated and real-time nationwide prescription drug monitoring program (PDMP).
6. APhA supports the use of interprofessional advisory boards that include pharmacists to coordinate collaborative efforts for (a) compiling, analyzing, and using prescription drug monitoring program (PDMP) data trends to identify misuse of controlled substances and/or fraud; (b) providing focused provider education and patient referral to treatment programs; and (c) supporting research activities on the impact of PDMPs.
7. APhA supports education and training for registrants about a nationwide prescription drug monitoring program (PDMP) to ensure proper data integrity, use, and confidentiality.

APhA supports laws, regulations, and policies that would allow pharmacies to transfer prescriptions for controlled substances for the purposes of an initial fill.

APhA supports pharmacists’ authority to include a medication’s purpose on prescription labels, on the basis of professional knowledge, judgment, and patient preference, using vocabulary that is appropriate for their unique practice sites and that addresses the needs of their specific patient populations.

1. APhA recommends that all professions with prescriptive authority address the issue of prescribers’ responsibility for specific instructions to the pharmacist and the patient in all prescription orders.
2. APhA affirms the pharmacist’s responsibility, as the patient’s advocate, to obtain and communicate adequate directions for use of medications.

1. It is APhA’s position that patient safety initiatives must include pharmacists in leadership roles.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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.
5. 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.
6. APhA supports the elimination of hand-written prescriptions or medication orders.

1. APhA supports the use of technology to facilitate the transmission of prescription order information from the prescriber to the pharmacist of the patient’s choice at no additional cost to the pharmacy.
2. APhA supports the use of technology where appropriate standards for patient confidentiality and prescriber and pharmacist verification are established.
3. APhA supports the transmission of complete prescriber information on or with the prescription order that enables the pharmacist to readily identify and facilitate communication with the prescriber.
4. APhA supports the use of specific instructions with prescription orders. Use of potentially confusing terminology (e.g.,“as directed,” unclear use of Latin phrases, confusing abbreviations) should be avoided.
5. APhA supports the inclusion of the diagnosis or indication for use for which the medication is ordered on or with the transmission of the prescription order by use of standard diagnosis codes or within the directions for use. APhA further supports the inclusion of patient-specific information on or with the prescription order where appropriate.
6. APhA supports public education about the benefits and risks of technological advances in pharmacy practice.

1. APhA opposes federally mandated, multiple copy, prescription order programs.
2. APhA supports the right of individual states to develop programs to prevent drug abuse and drug diversion.