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APhA Policy Manual

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QUALITY ASSURANCE

Browse policies organized by category. Select a category to view the related policy statements.

2 categories • 12 policies

Drug Product

1 Policies
Protecting Pharmaceuticals as a Strategic Asset
DISASTER PREPAREDNESS DRUG PRICING AND DISTRIBUTION FEDERAL PROGRAMS AND POLICIES QUALITY ASSURANCE

  1. APhA asserts that the quality and safety of pharmaceutical and other medical products and the global pharmaceutical and medical product supply chain are essential to the United States national security and public health.
  2. APhA advocates for pharmacist engagement in the development and implementation of national and global strategies to ensure the availability, quality, and safety of pharmaceutical and other medical products.
  3. APhA calls for the development, implementation, and oversight of enhanced and transparent processes, standards, and information that ensure quality and safety of all pharmaceutical ingredients and manufacturing processes.
  4. APhA calls on the federal government to penalize entities who create barriers that threaten the availability, quality, and safety of United States pharmaceutical and other medical product supplies.
  5. APhA calls for the development of redundancy and risk mitigation strategies in the manufacturing process to ensure reliable and consistent availability of safe and high-quality pharmaceutical and other medical products.
  6. APhA advocates for legal regulatory, policy, and market incentives that bolster the availability, quality, and safety of pharmaceutical and other medical products.
  7. APhA calls for greater transparency, accuracy, and timeliness of information and notification to health care professionals regarding drug shortages, product quality and manufacturing issues, supply disruption, and recalls.
  8. APhA encourages pharmacy providers, health systems, and payers to develop coordinated response plans, including the use of therapeutic alternatives, to mitigate the impact of drug shortages and supply disruptions.
  9. APhA supports federal legislation and regulations that engages pharmacists, other health professionals, and manufacturers in developing a United States-specific essential medicines list and provides funding mechanisms to ensure consistent availability of these products.
  10. APhA recommends the use of pharmacists in the delivery of public messages, through media and other communication channels, regarding pharmaceutical supply and quality issues.

2024
Credentialing and Pharmaceutical Care
EDUCATION, CURRICULUM AND COMPETENCE FOR PHARMACY QUALITY ASSURANCE

  1. APhA should continue to assist in the unification of the profession and the development of a national strategy by its continued support of the Council on Credentialing in Pharmacy as the body responsible for the leadership, standards, public information and coordination of the professions voluntary credentialing programs.
  2. APhA, in conjunction and cooperation with the Council on Credentialing and other national associations, should provide competence-based material and testing via technology, such as the APhA web-site and state association websites, to further the profession’s self-assessment.
  3. APhA, in conjunction and cooperation with the Council on Credentialing and other national associations, should develop the necessary products and programs to educate the public, insurers, and health professionals on credentialing and make them available to state associations at cost.
  4. APhA supports the development of programs and initiatives that demonstrate the value of pharmacists in improving clinical, economic, and humanistic patient outcomes.

2019
Just Culture Approach to Patient Safety
EDUCATION, CURRICULUM AND COMPETENCE FOR PHARMACY EMPLOYER/EMPLOYEE RELATIONS LICENSURE, REGISTRATION, AND REGULATION PHARMACY PRACTICE QUALITY ASSURANCE

  1. APhA calls for employers to adopt and implement just culture principles to improve patient safety and support pharmacy personnel.
  2. APhA encourages transparency between employers and employees by sharing deidentified medication error and near-miss data and trends as well as actions taken to promote continuous quality improvement.
  3. APhA urges the integration of non-disciplinary and non-punitive mechanisms for use by boards of pharmacy to promote just culture principles when addressing people, systems, and processes involved in medication errors.
  4. APhA encourages national and state associations to advocate for laws, regulations, and policies to provide protections to individuals utilizing error reporting systems to promote just culture.
  5. APhA encourages the creation of a mechanism for an industrywide effort to engage in confidential and transparent sharing of learnings and root cause findings helpful in reducing the risk of medication errors.
  6. APhA supports the integration of just culture principles in PharmD and pharmacy technician education, postgraduate training, and continuing professional development programs.

2024
Pharmacist Workplace Environment and Patient Safety
EMPLOYER/EMPLOYEE RELATIONS QUALITY ASSURANCE REIMBURSEMENT AND COMPENSATION

  1. APhA supports staffing models that promote safe provision of patient care services and access to medications.
  2. APhA encourages the adoption of patient centered quality and performance measures that align with safe delivery of patient care services and opposes the setting and use of operational quotas or time-oriented metrics that negatively impact patient care and safety.
  3. APhA denounces any policies or practices of third-party administrators, processors, and payers that contribute to a workplace environment that negatively impacts patient safety. APhA calls upon public and private policy makers to establish provider payment laws, regulations, and policies that support the safe provision of medications and delivery of effective patient care.
  4. APhA urges pharmacy personnel to establish collaborative mechanisms that engage the pharmacist in charge of each practice, pharmacists, pharmacy technicians, and pharmacy staff in addressing workplace issues that may have an impact on patient safety.
  5. APhA urges employers to collaborate with the pharmacy staff to regularly and systematically examine and resolve workplace issues that may have a negative impact on patient safety.
  6. APhA opposes retaliation against pharmacy personnel for reporting workplace issues that may negatively impact patient safety.

2024
Stakeholder Responsibilities in Appropriate Medication Use
QUALITY ASSURANCE

  1. Recognizing pharmacists work in all facets of the medication use system and have varying responsibilities, APhA advocates pharmacist responsibilities align with the Joint Commission of Pharmacy Practitioners (JCPP) Pharmacist Patient Care Process and the Oath of a Pharmacist.
  2. Recognizing patients are the focus of the medication use system, APhA advocates patients and caregivers assume responsibility for their health and well-being, actively engage in their care plan, communicate with health professionals, and learn more about their options for accessing care and associated costs for products and services.
  3. Recognizing prescribers play a vital role in the medication use system, APhA advocates prescribers engage with patients and caregivers, in the assessment, development and implementation of the patient care plan. APhA also advocates that prescribers communicate, engage, and provide necessary information for pharmacists to engage in the care plan to ensure optimal patient care.
  4. Recognizing payers’ role in the medication use system, APhA advocates payers fairly design coverage benefits for products and services utilizing patient, pharmacist, and prescriber input to optimize health outcomes. Additionally, APhA advocates payers assume responsibility for providing efficient, clear, and uniform communication, as well as administrative and payment processes that are adaptable for advances in care.

2024
Consolidation Within Health Care
FEDERAL PROGRAMS AND POLICIES PHARMACY PRACTICE QUALITY ASSURANCE

  1. APhA advocates that health care mergers and acquisitions must preserve the pharmacist–patient relationship.
  2. APhA supports optimizing the role of pharmacists in the provision of team-based care following health care mergers and acquisitions in order to: (a) enhance patient experience and safety; (b) improve population health; (c) reduce health care costs; and (d) improve the work life of health care providers.
  3. APhA asserts that the scope of review by federal agencies must have a focus on the impact of health care mergers and acquisitions on patient access and the provision of care to ensure optimal patient outcomes. Therefore, APhA calls for (a) reform of the pre–health care mergers and acquisitions process; (b) implementation of an ongoing post–health care mergers and acquisitions evaluation process to preserve patient choice and access to established patient–pharmacist relationships, and (c) continuous transparent dialogue among stakeholders throughout the process.
  4. APhA calls for the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to develop a task force to monitor health care mergers and acquisitions activity.

2024
Audits of Health Care Practices
PHARMACY PRACTICE PHARMACY TECHNICIANS QUALITY ASSURANCE REIMBURSEMENT AND COMPENSATION

  1. APhA recognizes that audits of health care practices, when used appropriately, may improve patient care and deter fraud, waste, and abuse.
  2. APhA advocates for the use of standardized and efficient audit procedures with transparent criteria clearly communicated by the payor and readily accessible to providers in advance.
  3. APhA advocates that audit processes should result in minimal disruption to practice workflow, minimal financial burden, and no impact on patient care.
  4. APhA urges timely notification and scheduling of claims audits to minimize disruption of patient care delivery.
  5. APhA supports the inclusion of education as a component of the audit process to improve documentation of services, meet payor requirements, and enhance the quality-of-care delivery.
  6. APhA opposes incentive-based auditor compensation and the use of statistical methodologies, such as sample extrapolation, for determining the recoupment of funds from health care providers or health care organizations.
  7. APhA advocates that audit reports include complete information listing audit discrepancies and appropriate guidelines for documenting and appealing these findings.
  8. APhA advocates that pharmacy audits be performed in a professional manner by a pharmacist or certified pharmacy technician.

2019
Measuring the Quality of Patient Care
QUALITY ASSURANCE

  1. APhA believes that quality assessment measures must evaluate the accessibility, acceptability, and technical quality of pharmacy services, as well as the patient-centered and economic outcomes of patient care. These measures must consider the perspectives of patients, pharmacists, and other health care providers.
  2. APhA believes quality assessment measures of patient care should be tested for validity and reliability in various pharmacy practice settings prior to widespread application.
  3. APhA should develop tools and/or programs that enable pharmacists to apply quality assessment measures to their delivery of patient care.
  4. APhA should promote efforts to educate patients, pharmacists, other health care providers, payers, policy makers, and other interested parties on the appropriate use of quality assessment measures to evaluate and improve the delivery of patient care.

2016
Pharmacy Practice Accreditation
LICENSURE, REGISTRATION, AND REGULATION PHARMACY PRACTICE QUALITY ASSURANCE

  1. APhA should lead the creation of consensus-based, pharmacy profession-developed accreditation standards and methods of evaluation to optimize the quality and safety of patient care and promote best practices.
  2. APhA urges that accrediting bodies use profession-developed standards for pharmacy.
  3. APhA supports only those pharmacy accreditation processes that are voluntary, transparent, consensus-based, reasonably executable, and affordable, while avoiding duplication and barriers to patient care.
  4. APhA opposes mandatory pharmacy accreditation.
  5. APhA shall assume the leadership role among stakeholders on the design and implementation of an appropriate process for any new pharmacy accrediting program.
  6. APhA supports the appropriate use of data gathered from pharmacy practice monitoring processes to facilitate the advancement of pharmacy practice and quality of patient care.

2016
Pharmacist’s Role in Patient Safety
EDUCATION, CURRICULUM AND COMPETENCE FOR PHARMACY PHARMACY PRACTICE POST-MARKETING SURVEILLANCE PRESCRIPTIONS AND PRESCRIPTION ORDERS QUALITY ASSURANCE

  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.

2021
Continuing Professional Development
EDUCATION, CURRICULUM AND COMPETENCE FOR PHARMACY QUALITY ASSURANCE

  1. APhA supports continuing professional development, a self-directed, individualized, systematic approach to life-long learning, to support pharmacist’s efforts to maintain professional competence in their practice.
  2. APhA should work with appropriate organizations to provide self-assessment and plan development tools. APhA shall help identify and facilitate access to quality educational programs.
  3. Employers should foster and support pharmacist participation in continuing professional development.
  4. Continuing professional development is a learning process that requires full participation to achieve desired individual outcomes. To facilitate that participation, each pharmacist controls disclosure of their individual assessments and outcomes.

2019
Quality Assurance and Improvement in Pharmacy Practice
PHARMACY PRACTICE QUALITY ASSURANCE

  1. APhA recommends that all pharmacists incorporate principles and tools available to continually improve the quality of patient care and management activities in their practices.
  2. APhA recommends that content on principles and tools available to continually improve the quality of patient care and management practices be incorporated into pharmacy school curricula and into post-graduate education for pharmacists.
  3. APhA supports appropriate evaluation and recognition of providers of pharmaceutical care.

2016
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