2222 PHARMACIST'S ROLE IN MEDICATION PROCUREMENT, DISTRIBUTION, SURVEILLANCE, AND CONTROL

To affirm the pharmacist’s expertise, responsibility, and oversight in the procurement, distribution, surveillance, and control of all medications used within health systems and affiliated services; further,

To assert that the pharmacy leader retains the authority to determine the safe and reliable sourcing of medications; further,

To assert that the pharmacy workforce is responsible for the coordination of medication-related care, including optimizing access, ensuring judicious stewardship of resources, and providing intended high-quality clinical care; further,

To encourage payers, manufacturers, wholesalers, accreditation bodies, and governmental entities to enhance patient safety by supporting the health-system pharmacy workforce’s role in medication procurement, distribution, surveillance, and control.

Rationale

Pharmacists are accountable for ensuring that medications will be optimally used in the care setting in which they work. (For the purposes of this policy, “medications” include those used by inpatients and outpatients, large- and small-volume injectables, radiopharmaceuticals, diagnostic agents including radiopaque contrast media, anesthetic gases, blood-fraction drugs, dialysis fluids, respiratory therapy drugs, biotechnologically produced drugs, investigational drugs, drug samples, drugs brought to the setting by patients or family, and other chemicals and biological substances administered to patients to evoke or enhance pharmacologic responses.) The pharmacist and pharmacy workforce, as part of their leadership over all aspects of the medication-use process, are responsible for medication procurement, distribution, surveillance and control. One of the central roles of the pharmacist and pharmacy workforce in hospitals, health systems, and affiliated services is to oversee and assume accountability for these responsibilities while also supporting patient access to medications and engaging in clinical services to optimize medication use. While recognizing the stakeholders that influence medication procurement, distribution, surveillance, and control such as payers, manufacturers, wholesalers, accreditation bodies, and governmental entities, pharmacists require the autonomy to make decisions related to these aspects for their institutions and affiliated service provision.