ARLINGTON,  Va. – The National Association of Chain Drug Stores (NACDS) Wednesday announced the online “NACDS Optimizing Care Process Guide,” a resource for states, pharmacies and others seeking to increase patients’ access to clinical care delivered in community pharmacies. This initiative aligns with other efforts to empower pharmacists to improve patients’ health outcomes, and with overarching national goals to improve healthcare access and value.

Steven Anderson

The “NACDS Optimizing Care Process Guide” presents many of the educational resources that were created, and that have been effectively used, in the NACDS Optimizing Care Program. Through this program, the resources have helped to implement technician product verification models in three NACDS demonstration states—Iowa, Wisconsin and Tennessee. Because of the proven success and potential of these models and materials, NACDS is encouraging other states to utilize the new process guide to help replicate the model more broadly for the purpose of advancing pharmacy care for patients.

“This initiative stands as part of a comprehensive approach to improve patient access to healthcare and appropriately position pharmacy as a healthcare destination,” said NACDS president and chief executive officer Steven Anderson. “These efforts are essential in a constantly changing healthcare landscape, which is creating challenges that need to be met with innovations like optimization of care.”

The NACDS Optimizing Care Program better utilizes the entire skillset of all pharmacy staff by expanding the administrative duties of pharmacy technicians to better support medication dispensing through technician product verification. This gives pharmacists more time to provide valuable clinical services, such as patient-centered medication adherence counseling, chronic care programs, medication optimization, screenings, immunizations, and more. As demonstrated by research, this model maintains patient safety and does not remove pharmacists from any aspects of clinical decision-making, nor does it reduce pharmacists’ time in the pharmacy, but rather redirects their time toward more clinically meaningful patient care activities.

Specifically, the “NACDS Optimizing Care Process Guide” presents actionable insights for:

• Defining and committing to the purpose for optimizing care
• Leveraging lessons learned from others
• Fostering collaboration and gathering partners
• Determining readiness to implement technician product verification
• Preparing the pharmacy team
• Implementation and ongoing refinement.

The “NACDS Optimizing Care Process Guide” also builds on a report released in July 2018 by the University of Pittsburgh, Pharmacy Technician Role Expansion: An Evidence-Based Paper. The University of Pittsburgh worked with NACDS members and other experts within an advisory group to develop the white paper.

For more information on the NACDS Optimizing Care Program and to access the educational resources, process guide, and other materials, please visit https://www.nacds.org/optimizing-care/