Following the lead of the Board of Pharmacy Specialties (BPS), ACCP is working closely with BPS staff and other pharmacy organizations to introduce proposals seeking the recognition of new pharmacy specialties. Recent revisions in its petitioning process will allow BPS to consider requests for the establishment of new specialties before the submission of a formal petition. If the request provides adequate documentation of support for the potential new specialty area, BPS can then move forward to conduct a formal role delineation study to determine whether the proposed specialty area requires specialized knowledge of the pharmaceutical sciences and whether it involves specialized functions routinely performed by practitioners in the proposed specialty. This new process is expected to expedite the specialty recognition process.
BPS recently announced the receipt of such a request from the Strategic Planning Summit for the Advancement of Pain and Palliative Care Pharmacy (see http://www.accp.com/docs/positions/misc/PainPallCareSummit2010.pdf), which resulted in a planned role delineation study to evaluate pain and palliative care (PPC) as a new pharmacy specialty. It is expected that this study will commence in the fall of 2011 and that the results will be available for BPS assessment in late 2011. If BPS finds that the results of the role delineation study validate PPC as a potential pharmacy specialty, it will seek a petition for recognition of that specialty from one or more sponsors in early 2012. The petition development and approval process is expected to require an additional 6–9 months. If the petition is approved, examination development will likely require another 6–12 months. Hence, if the proposed PPC specialty is established, a BPS PPC examination could possibly be offered as early as fall, 2013.
“We’re really encouraged by the efforts of BPS to improve and accelerate the specialty recognition process,” said ACCP Executive Director Michael Maddux. “While it does appear that it will take about 3 years from the time of initial proposal to the offering of a new specialty exam, there’s a strong likelihood that the new BPS process will allow the pursuit of more than one specialty at the same time.”
Conforming to BPS criteria for recognition of new specialties, the College will be seeking input from ACCP member-specialists, PRNs, and other stakeholder groups as it develops a series of proposals for BPS consideration. Dr. Maddux commented further on the anticipated process:
It looks to us as if several new specialties can be proposed during 2011 and 2012, in addition to the Pain and Palliative Care proposal, which is currently under consideration by BPS. We are willing to take the lead on submitting additional new proposals to BPS and then pursuing petition development for any of those proposals that produce a role delineation study supporting a valid new specialty.
In addition, ACCP will seek collaboration from other interested organizations if they wish to serve as co-petitioners. “Our board believes that this is a high priority and that we should move forward as expeditiously as possible,” Dr. Maddux added. However, he stated,
The College also wants to involve any other professional society that is willing and able to serve as a petition cosponsor. We congratulate BPS on taking these steps and look forward to working closely with BPS staff and colleague organizations to increase access to board certification for clinical pharmacy specialists who don’t currently have an exam available in their specialty.
For the next couple of months, ACCP will be communicating with PRN leaders and other specialists to determine their level of interest in pursuing board certification in a new specialty. Look for updates on the progress of these initiatives in future issues of the ACCP Report.