Policies Adopted by the 2023 House of Delegates

The following policies were adopted by the 2023 American Pharmacists Association (APhA) House of Delegates, which took place March 24–27, 2023, in Phoenix, AZ, and are now official APhA policy.

2023 Workplace Conditions

1. APhA calls for employers to provide fair, realistic, and equitable workplace conditions for pharmacy personnel that promote a safe, healthy, and sustainable working environment.     
2. APhA urges all entities that impact pharmacy personnel workplace conditions to adopt the Pharmacists Fundamental Responsibilities and Rights.
3. APhA urges employers to develop and empower pharmacy personnel to use flexible practice management models based on available staffing, expertise, and resources that balance workloads to minimize distractions.
4. APhA advocates for employers to provide workplace onboarding and training for pharmacy personnel to optimize employee performance and satisfaction.
5. APhA encourages pharmacy personnel, starting with leaders, to model and facilitate individualized healthy working behaviors that improve well-being and to encourage and empower colleagues to do the same.
6. APhA opposes the sole use of productivity and fiscal measures for employee performance evaluations.
7. APhA calls for employers and employees to collaborate in the development and use of behavioral performance competencies in performance evaluations.

2023 Just Culture Approach to Patient Safety

1. APhA calls for employers to adopt and implement just culture principles to improve patient safety and support pharmacy personnel.
2. APhA encourages transparency between employers and employees by sharing deidentified medication error and near-miss data and trends as well as actions taken to promote continuous quality improvement.
3. APhA urges the integration of non-disciplinary and non-punitive mechanisms for use by boards of pharmacy to promote just culture principles when addressing people, systems, and processes involved in medication errors.
4. APhA encourages national and state associations to advocate for legislation to provide protections to individuals utilizing error reporting systems to promote just culture.
5. APhA encourages the creation of a mechanism for an industrywide effort to engage in confidential and transparent sharing of learnings and root cause findings helpful in reducing the risk of medication errors.
6. APhA supports the integration of just culture principles in PharmD and pharmacy technician education, postgraduate training, and continuing professional development programs.

2023 Site of Care Patient Steerage

1. APhA calls for the elimination of payer-driven medication administration policies and provisions that restrict access points, interfere with shared provider–patient decision making, cause delays in care, or otherwise adversely impact the patient.
2. APhA asserts that care coordination services associated with provider-administered medications are essential to safe and effective medication use and calls for the development of broadly applicable compensation mechanisms for these essential services.

2023 Development of Veterinary Pharmacy Education Opportunities in Schools and Colleges of Pharmacy and Pharmacy Technician Training

1. APhA encourages schools and colleges of pharmacy and pharmacy technician training programs to facilitate educational opportunities for student pharmacists and student pharmacy technicians in the principles of veterinary pharmacotherapy.
2. APhA encourages the availability of professional development opportunities in the principles of veterinary pharmacotherapy for pharmacists, student pharmacists, and pharmacy technicians.

2023 Uncompensated Care Mandates in Pharmacy

1. APhA calls for commensurate compensation for the provision of compulsory or mandated pharmacy services that include all products, supplies, labor, expertise, and administrative fees based on transparent economic analyses of existing and future services.

2023 Access to Comprehensive Reproductive Health Care

1. APhA supports equitable patient access to evidence-based comprehensive reproductive health care, including, but not limited to, the management of pregnancy loss, ectopic pregnancy, infertility, pregnancy termination, contraception, and permanent contraception.
2. APhA recognizes patient autonomy in choosing reproductive health care services and the essential role of all health care professionals in facilitating access and advancing informed decision making.
3. APhA supports evidence-based legislation that ensures patient access to comprehensive reproductive health care services.
4. APhA opposes legal actions against pharmacies, pharmacists, and pharmacy personnel that provide patient access to, or information regarding, reproductive health care services that are within the pharmacist scope of practice.

2023 Employer Responsibilities Related to Comprehensive Reproductive Health Care Access

1. APhA advocates for employers to provide coverage and access to comprehensive reproductive health care services.
2. APhA demands that pharmacists and pharmacy personnel receive accommodations before, during, and after pregnancy, including but not limited to sufficient time and space for breaks, opportunities to sit while working, and access to food and water between breaks.

2023 Pharmacist Representation on Medical Staff

1. APhA advocates for pharmacists to be included as members of medical staffs and eligible to vote on the bylaws, standards, rules, regulations, and policies that govern those institutions’ medical staffs.
2. APhA supports pharmacists, as part of the medical staff, have parity in their opportunity to be credentialed and privileged as independent medical providers.

2023 Greenhouse Gas Emissions

1. APhA urges implementation of strategies throughout the pharmaceutical product lifecycle (e.g., research, development, manufacturing, marketing, distribution, dispensing, use, and disposal) to achieve net zero emissions by 2050.

2023 Access to Essential Medicines

1. APhA advocates regulation, policies, and legislation that recognize access to quality and affordable essential medicines as a fundamental human right.

2023 Enforcing Antidiscrimination in the Dispensing of Medications

1. APhA affirms that discrimination and stigma should not impact a patient’s ability to obtain medications.

2023 Pharmacy Shortage Areas

1. APhA recognizes geographic proximity and transportation to pharmacies as key determinants in equitable access to medications, vaccines, and patient care services.
2. APhA calls for laws, regulations, and policies that reduce pharmacy shortage areas and ensure equitable access to essential services.
3. APhA supports the development of financial incentives to establish physical pharmacy locations in pharmacy shortage areas and to prevent the closure of pharmacies in underserved areas.

2023 Transgender and Nonbinary Health Care

1. APhA supports the enactment by state and federal legislatures to establish laws and policies to end discriminatory practices that limit access to care for transgender and nonbinary people.
2. APhA encourages equity in care for transgender and nonbinary individuals through:
   1. Continuing education on the pharmacist’s role in transgender care, gender-affirming therapy, and health disparities in transgender and nonbinary patients.
   2. Systematic integration and utilization of affirmed name and pronouns, gender identity, and anatomical inventory.
   3. Availability and implementation of education and resources related to gender-diverse care for all persons employed in health care settings.

Amendment of Existing Policy

Through its new business process, the House amended existing policy, 2016, 1990 Legalization or Decriminalization of Illicit Drugs. The previous policy statement #1 was retained. The existing policy statement #2 was archived and is no longer an active APhA policy (shown below as statement #4). The previous statement #3 (shown as statement #5 below) was amended as written. Two new statements were added, shown below as statements #2 and #3. Note: amendments are in red font and deletions are struck through and proposed additions are underlined.

2023, 2016, 1990 Legalization or Decriminalization of Illicit Drugs

1. APhA opposes legalization of the possession, sale, distribution, or use of illicit drug substances for non-medical uses.
2. APhA supports decriminalization of the personal possession or personal use of illicit drug substances or paraphernalia.
3. APhA supports voluntary pathways for the treatment and rehabilitation of individuals who have been charged with the possession or use of illicit drug substances and who have substance use or other related medical disorders.
4. APhA supports criminal penalties for persons convicted of drug trafficking or illicit drug manufacturing whenever alternate pathways are inappropriate as determined by the courts.