Recognition of community-based pharmacist practitioners: Essential health care providers

To introduce the term community-based pharmacist practitioner (CPP), detail how community pharmacists are transitioning into this essential role, suggest 4 tenets of CPPs, and discuss the role of CPPs in future pharmacy practice.

The focus and nature of community pharmacy is expanding into new practice settings and including enhanced patient care services. With these shifts toward better meeting the health care needs of the communities they serve, community-based pharmacists who provide patient care services have refined specialized skills and should be widely viewed and accepted by the profession, patients, other health care providers, and the public as health care practitioners. Four suggested tenets of CPPs are: deliver direct patient care, contribute to team-based care, manage patient care services, and serve as leaders for advancing patient care.

Pharmacist-provided patient care services are expanding in a variety of community-based settings. The term "community-based pharmacist practitioner" highlights the unique skillset that pharmacists use when they provide patient care services, and it brings recognition to the value community pharmacists contribute to patients, communities, and the health care system.