Experts Discuss Key Pharmacy Issues at Fall Educational Conference

December 27, 2005 12:00 am

Attendees of the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy®'s (NABP®) Fall Educational Conference, held December 2-4, 2005, at the Trump Sonesta Hotel in Sunny Isles Beach, FL, had a unique opportunity to increase their professional knowledge through exposure to continuing education (CE) sessions. The sessions were designed specifically for the Association's state boards of pharmacy, which are composed of executive officers and board staff, pharmacist and public members, compliance staff, and board counsel, as well as those in the pharmacy profession. Attendees were able to earn up to 11 hours of Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education (ACPE)-approved CE credit at sessions covering important issues affecting the pharmacy profession. For complete summaries of the sessions, visit NABP's Web site, www.nabp.net. CE sessions included the following:

• Michelle Ferritto, MBA, of the Regulatory Drafting Unit of the Drug Enforcement Administration’s (DEA) Office of Diversion Control summarized new regulations for controlled substances (CS) in “Federal Regulatory Update on Controlled Substances: Discussion with Drug Enforcement Administration”;
• The impacts of the most significant change to the Medicare program in its 40-year history was the focus of “Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act of 2003 (MMA): Implications for Boards of Pharmacy,” presented by Kim A. Caldwell, RPh, vice president of the Texas State Board of Pharmacy;
• NABP Professional Affairs Director Eleni Z. Anagnostiadis, RPh, opened “Pharmacy Technicians: A Need to Standardize Education, Training and Scope of Duties?” by stating that the evolving nature of the pharmacy profession has necessitated the regulation of pharmacy technicians. She then provided a history of NABP’s role in the training and certification of pharmacy technicians. Melissa Murer Corrigan, RPh, executive director and chief executive officer of the Pharmacy Technician Certification Board (PTCB), provided insight into PTCB examination formulation and a discussion of a recently completed comprehensive analysis of the practice of CPhTs that took about one year to complete. Kenneth W. Schafermeyer, RPh, PhD, director of education at the Institute for the Advancement of Community Pharmacy, provided an overview of the Institute for the Advancement of Community Pharmacy’s Exam for the Certification of Pharmacy Technicians;
• In the session titled “Contemporary Issues in the Education of Pharmacists: Is the Quality of Pharmacy Education in Jeopardy?,” experts including Peter H. Vlasses, PharmD, BCPS, FCCP, executive director of ACPE, and Katherine K. Knapp, PharmD, dean of Touro University’s College of Pharmacy, explored educational quality standards and implications of a decline in the number of pharmacists in the workforce. Daniel A. Hussar, PhD, Remington professor of pharmacy, Philadelphia College of Pharmacy at the University of Sciences at Philadelphia, stated that the pharmacy profession needs a critical self-examination to determine how it has addressed the pharmacist shortage;
• In the session “Telepharmacy, Remote Dispensing/Verification, and Automated Dispensing Devices: Increasing Access to Pharmacist Care Initiatives,” John D. Jones, RPh, JD, vice president, Legal and Regulatory Affairs, at Prescription Solutions and a member of the California State Board of Pharmacy, and William T. Winsley, RPh, MS, executive director of the Ohio State Board of Pharmacy, spoke about how their boards of pharmacy have utilized these new technologies; and
• In the session “Refusal to Dispense,” Edward R. Martin, Jr, JD, attorney and director of the Center for Rights of Conscience at Americans United for Life, and Luke Vander Bleek, RPh, owner of Fitzgerald and Eggleston Pharmacies, discussed their stance on current legislation that affects pharmacists’ rights of conscience.

Renee Renganathan