The Value of Specialty Pharmacy, Long-term Care Accreditation for Pharmacies

Pharmacy Times® interviewed Tim Safley, MBA, program director of the Accreditation Commission for Health Care (ACHC), and Jon Pritchett, PharmD, RPh, BCSCP, program director of ACHC, on the value of specialty pharmacy and long-term care (LTC) accreditation for pharmacies.

The discussion included how there are currently several organizations that provide accreditation for specialty pharmacy, including ACHC, The Joint Commission, and URAC. Safley and Pritchett discussed the weight accreditation carries, and some of the differences between them in accreditation requirements.

Safley noted that ACHC offers a distinct accreditation for LTC pharmacy. He said, “About 7 years ago, we started developing a long-term care accreditation for long-term care pharmacies. We noticed it wasn't out there in the industry today. One of the nice things about it is we saw when ACOs started taking over, ACOs wanted everybody that are out there that's going to be part of the ACOs to be accredited, and this included long term care pharmacies.”

Safley and Pritchett also discussed some differences between specialty pharmacy and LTC pharmacy, some unique challenges for LTC pharmacists, and what pharmacists should know about when pursuing accreditation for LTC pharmacies.