Virginia Board of Health Professions Announces Public Hearing to Receive Comments on Pharmacy Technician Scope of Practice

Following up on last year's Board of Health Professions study of pharmacists, the Board announced on Tuesday, May 14th that they will now move forward with studying the current duties, responsibilities, training and education of pharmacy technicians and will determine what changes, if any, should be made to laws and regulatory policies to best enable effective team approaches for the care of Virginia's patients.

The Board of Health Professions has announced the timetable for the pharmacy technician study:

• July 30, 2013: Public Hearing/Committee Meeting

• July-August 2013: Open Public Comment Period

VPhA encourages you to think about your current practice and if there are any unnecessary restrictions that you feel should be altered to ease the burden on pharmacists and pharmacy technician and better ensure access to healthcare through strengthened health professional teams.

• The full laws and regulations can be found here: http://www.dhp.virginia.gov/Pharmacy/pharmacy_laws_regs.htm 

• The Board of Pharmacy has a separate page for Pharmacy Technicians with additional information: http://www.dhp.virginia.gov/Pharmacy/news_technician.htm 

The VPhA Board of Directors would like to hear your thoughts and suggestions concerning the review of Pharmacy Technicians.  If you have comments, please feel free to response send us an email at vpha@virginiapharmacists.org.