Development of competency standards for quality assurance in clinical pharmacokinetics

In response to an editorial in Hospital Pharmacy which called for "in-house credentialling" of pharmacists engaged in the application of clinical pharmacokinetics, a method of introducing quality assurance in pharmacokinetics is presented. The evolution of a pharmacokinetic dosing service in which each pharmacist is responsible for the provision of dosage recommendations on his/her patient care area is discussed, along with the difficulties which had to be overcome in order to establish uniform guidelines for our clinical pharmacy staff to follow when providing this service. Finally, the establishment of acceptable levels of competence, means of obtaining those levels, and methods for the determination of competence are presented.