Staff Report with Final Results: Texas State Board of Pharmacy Page: 1
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Sunset Advisory Commission June 2017
SUMMARY
The Texas State Board of Pharmacy has established itself as a well-run agency
capable of effectively responding to new regulatory issues and legislative
mandates within its limited resources. Created in 1907 to examine and
certify pharmacists, the board's mission has expanded over time to adapt
to the increasingly complex and growing practice of pharmacy. The board
now licenses more than 90,000 pharmacists and pharmacy
technicians, and licenses and inspects nearly 8,000 pharmacies. With the
Beginning in 2013, the Legislature required the board to
place additional scrutiny on high-risk sterile compounding
pharmacies, following several deaths nationally from tainted country, i
drugs distributed by a Massachusetts compounding pharmacy. ensure T
During the Sunset review, staff looked carefully at the board's monitoring
progress to catch up with resulting inspection backlogs and the most
cover its regulatory mandates and found no critical concerns repor
with its core licensing, inspection, and enforcement functions.
Absent major problems with the board's basic duties, Sunset staff focused on
the prescription drug abuse epidemic facing the country, which claimed 23,000
lives nationally in 2013 and was a constant backdrop to the review. Staff closely
evaluated the board's new role over the Prescription Monitoring Program, the
state's key tool for keeping track of the more than 11 million prescriptions
distributed in Texas each year for highly addictive drugs such as Vicodin, Xanax,
and OxyContin. Most states have similar databases collecting and reporting
information from pharmacies to give drug prescribers and dispensers the
information they need to prevent abuse before the patients taking these drugs
wind up in emergency care or worse. Unfortunately,Texas'program lags behind
national best practices, lacking a number of basic tools needed to maximize its
effectiveness, such as ensuring data is timely entered into the system and that
pharmacists actually look at the information before dispensing highly addictive
prescriptions. As the board takes over the program from the Department of
Public Safety (DPS) on September 1, 2016, and makes adjustments under its
new authority, now is the time to ensure Texas' system offers the most robust
data and reporting possible. While Texas has fared better than some other
states nationally in this crisis, these changes are needed to ensure the high cost
of prescription drug abuse does not grow further in Texas. While prescribers
such as doctors also have an important role to play in curbing the problem,
this report focuses narrowly on the role of the pharmacy board and postpones
evaluation of prescriber best practices to the upcoming Sunset review of the
Texas Medical Board.
Staff also explored the potential benefits of transferring the board's functions
to an alternative organizational structure, such as the Texas Department of
Licensing and Regulation or another healthcare licensing agency. While anprescription drug
idemic facing the
now is the time to
exas' prescription
g program offers
robust data and
ting possible.Texas State Board of Pharmacy Staff Report with Final Results
Summary of Sunset Staff Recommendations1
Sunset Advisory Commission
June 2017
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Ogle, Steven; Schiff, Tamara; Hartley, Cee & Teleki, Katharine. Staff Report with Final Results: Texas State Board of Pharmacy, report, June 2017; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1033475/m1/21/: accessed July 17, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting UNT Libraries Government Documents Department.