Ambulatory care pharmacy leaders recommend greater role for pharmacists

Leaders in ambulatory care pharmacy practice, medicine, and nursing collaborated on the development of draft recommendations to advance patient care in ambulatory settings. They focused on the need for pharmacists to assume greater responsibility and accountability for patient outcomes in the ambulatory setting, during the first ASHP Ambulatory Care Conference and Summit held March 3-4 in Dallas.

“The goal of the summit was to create a vision for forward-thinking pharmacy practice models that will ensure that pharmacists participate as universally available and full members of all ambulatory healthcare teams, responsible and accountable for patient and health-system outcomes,” according to an ASHP statement.

There were 25 recommendations developed at the inaugural conference that focused on four practice domains: Defining ambulatory care pharmacy practice, patient care delivery and integration, sustainable business models, and outcomes and evaluation.

“The outcomes of this conference and summit are critical to enhancing access to the patient-care services of pharmacists in clinics and other outpatient settings,” said ASHP CEO Paul W. Abramowitz, PharmD, Sc.D (Hon.), FASHP. “There is a great need to have more pharmacists serving in primary and specialty care roles on the patient care team in all clinics and outpatient settings. This is one of the reasons why ASHP is advocating so strongly that pharmacists must be recognized as providers under Medicare Part B.”

ASHP President Gerald E. Meyer, PharmD, MBA, FASHP, added, “With the changes in healthcare and the growing emphasis on seamless transitions in care, this work is critical to advancing our members’ contributions to patient care.”

More than 400 practitioners attended the consensus conference, which was supported by ASHP and the ASHP Research and Education Foundation. Corporate sponsors included Amgen, Apexus, Omnicell, and Teva.

The Proceedings of the Summit will be published in the American Journal of Health-System Pharmacy.