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Compounding pharmacists play a vital role in their patients' lives, providing customized medications ordered by prescribers, sometimes when all other options will not work. Compounded medications are prepared by pharmacists for individual patients, often with special needs.
With an estimated 30 million to 40 million prescriptions compounded each year, the pharmacy profession saw a need for an enhanced, profession-wide system of standards by which each compounding pharmacy can test its quality processes. Compounding pharmacists also wanted a mechanism to allow them to know that their quality is high and that their patients are as safe as possible. PCAB Accreditation gives patients and prescribers a way to select a pharmacy that meets high quality standards.
PCAB is a not-for-profit corporation formed by eight national pharmacy organizations that recognized the need for a national standards organization for compounding pharmacy. Each of these organizations has one representative on the board. The member organizations are:
American College of Apothecaries
American Pharmacists Association
International Academy of Compounding Pharmacists
National Association of Boards of Pharmacy
National Community Pharmacists Association
National Council of State Pharmacy Association Executives
National Home Infusion Association
United States Pharmacopeial Convention (USP)
The mission of PCAB is:
a.To organize and carryout a comprehensive program of voluntary accreditation in the practice of pharmacy compounding.
b.To promote, develop and maintain principles, policies and standards for the practice of pharmacy compounding in the public interest and to apply these in the accreditation of pharmacies that offer pharmacy compounding to improve the quality and safety of pharmacy compounding provided to the general public.
c.To offer to the public and prescribers a way to identify the pharmacies that satisfy accreditation criteria.
d.To provide a public forum for information on the practice of pharmacy compounding, and to educate the public on the importance of pharmacy compounding.
Why is PCAB uniquely qualified to accredit compounding pharmacies?
PCAB brings together the expertise of the leading pharmacy organizations in the United States in the field of compounding pharmacy.Through these organizations, PCAB is able to assemble THE experts in the field. For example, PCAB's Standards Committee includes some of the nation's leading compounding pharmacists, as well as some who literally "wrote the book" on compounding. No one is more dedicated to protecting patients and the profession than the pharmacists represented by these organizations. They know what to look for, what can be done and what should not be done ? and are determined to accept into their ranks only the best.
In addition, the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy (a PCAB member organization) represents all 50 state pharmacy regulatory boards, as well as those from the U.S. territories and most Canadian provinces. These boards of pharmacy represent not the pharmacies in their states, but the citizens (patients) of the state.
Finally, PCAB member the United States Pharmacopeia, formed in 1817, is the premier drug and chemical standards organization in the world (and sets standards for the pharmaceutical industry). The U.S. government recognizes USP standards as official.
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