Board Rules on Collaborative Practice, Vaccines for Children, APhM and more

September 8, 2020 

Florida Board of Pharmacy Advances Rules on Collaborative Practice and Test and Treat

The Florida Board of Pharmacy Rules Committee and full board met to review and recommend for adoption of draft rules related to HB389. This legislation signed into law by Governor DeSantis allows pharmacists to initiate, modify or discontinue prescription drug therapy for patients with certain chronic diseases in collaboration with licensed Florida physicians. The legislation also allows pharmacists to test and treat patients with certain non-chronic conditions. The draft rules require 20 hours of certificate training for chronic diseases and 20 hours for non-chronic conditions. Eight hours of that training must be in a live or a live video teleconference. A new chapter is being created that helps to implement HB389. Rules are being developed under 64B16-31. FPA will be hosting a free webinar for members on Thursday, September 10th at 3:00 pm and will share some information about this.

Vaccine Awareness for Children

Last month The Department of Health and Human Services announced as a declaration under the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act (PREP Act) to expand immunization services for children. This included working to allow pharmacists to provide these services. Over 22 states allow pharmacists to immunize children however Florida laws do not permit this. While we believe that this action by HHS supersedes state laws we are in communication with the Department of Health to clarify that Florida pharmacists can provide these services. HHS has provided a toolkit that can be used to advocate for childhood vaccinations.
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Vaccine Finder Services Registry – What is VaccineFinder?

The VaccineFinder website helps people find providers who offer seasonal influenza vaccination and routine adult and child vaccination (www.vaccinefinder.org). VaccineFinder relies on partnerships with vaccination providers to report accurate and upto-date information about vaccination services. The HealthMap Computational Epidemiology Lab maintains VaccineFinder in partnership with the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). VaccineFinder’s goal is to make it simple for people to find a nearby location to receive a vaccination. Pharmacies should consider registering on this site.

American Pharmacist Month is will be Here Soon

Next month we will be celebrating American Pharmacist Month. Now is the time to begin preparation for this big event. We want to share your activity with the members. This include any declarations that you were able to secure from your local governmental officials. Also send to us any photo images of activities or articles on things that you are involved in to promote our profession. If we have an opportunity we will share what you are doing in Florida Pharmacy Today or in our social media sites.

Governor DeSantis Extends State of Emergency

On March 9th Governor Ron DeSantis declared a state of emergency (Executive Order 20-52) for Florida due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Since then, that order has been renewed several times. On September 4th, the Governor has issued Executive Order 20-2013 which extends previous declared state of emergencies for another 60 days.