Pharmacists' attitudes toward advanced practice nurses' prescriptive authority

In an era of managed care, the new healthcare paradigm emphasizes a team approach to primary care health services. A team approach requires collaboration among healthcare providers. One model that has not been adequately explored is that of the advanced practice nurse (APN) and the pharmacist. This study examines the attitudes of pharmacists in Colorado toward the prescriptive authority of APNs and explores some of the issues that may discourage a collaborative relationship between APNs and pharmacists. Although the response rate was limited (18%), a preliminary impression of pharmacists' attitudes was gathered. In general, the pharmacists were supportive of APNs' prescriptive authority, although they qualified their responses with the fact that the workload increased. Other concerns were lack of information about the legal ramifications of APNs' prescriptive authority and difficulty with third-party insurors who did not recognize APNs as primary care providers. Suggestions for developing a more cohesively collaborative relationship between APNs and pharmacists were discussed.