New Guidelines: Pharmacists Should Be Vaccine Advocates
Ensure quality by achieving and maintaining competence to administer immunizations.
APhA’s revised immunization guidelines urge pharmacists to protect their patients’ health by being vaccine advocates and to report adverse events, among other recommendations.
As the pharmacist’s role in raising the rate of immunizations continues to expand, APhA revised its Guidelines for Pharmacy-based Immunization Advocacy and Administration. The guidelines cover five areas: prevention, partnership, quality, documentation, and empowerment.
The updated recommendations say pharmacists should document immunizations fully, report clinically significant events using the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), educate patients about immunizations, and respect patients’ rights, as well as their beliefs.
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They also call for pharmacists to collaborate, coordinate, and communicate with immunization stakeholders to protect the community from vaccine-preventable diseases.
Pharmacists should ensure quality by achieving and maintaining competence to administer immunizations, according to the guidelines.
Originally approved in 1997, the APhA Board of Trustees reviewed, updated, and approved the guidelines in 2012 and again in late January 2019.
