Empowering Public Health Pharmacy Practice—Moving from Collaborative Practice Agreements to Provider Status in the U.S.

Abstract

This article describes the history and evolution of pharmacist-physician collaborative practice agreements (CPAs) in the United States with future directions to support pharmacists’ provider status as the profession continues to evolve from product-oriented to patient-centered care and population health. The pharmacy profession has a long history of dispensing and compounding, with the addition of clinical roles in the late 20th century. These clinical roles have continued to expand into diverse arenas such as communicable and non-communicable diseases, antimicrobial stewardship, emergency preparedness and response, public health education and health promotion, and critical and emergency care. Pharmacists continue to serve as integral members of interprofessional and interdisciplinary healthcare teams. In this context, CPAs allow pharmacists to expand their roles in patient care and may be considered as a step towards securing provider status. Moving beyond CPAs to a provider status would enable pharmacists to be reimbursed for cognitive services and promote integrated public health delivery models.