A Roadmap for Studying the Impact of Pharmacist Board Certification on Patient Outcomes: Feasibility, Applicability,...

The American College of Clinical Pharmacy (ACCP) advocates for board certification of clinical pharmacists in one of the recognized specialties as a fundamental qualification and requirement for providing and supervising trainees in the provision of direct patient care. However, data linking pharmacist board certification to patient outcomes are limited, and many methodological challenges exist to effectively evaluate the impact of board-certified pharmacists (BCPs). The purpose of this ACCP white paper is to critically analyze study design characteristics in order to inform future studies assessing the impact of BCPs on patient outcomes. Value depends on the stakeholder perspective, which informs the study design. This white paper considers the feasibility and applicability of various study methods that may be used to evaluate the impact of BCPs, including overall study design, study group assignment, outcome measures, reporting of clinical practice activities, identification of confounding variables, and statistical analyses, including methods to control for confounders. The 2025 ACCP Research Affairs Committee was surveyed to rate the feasibility and applicability of studying the impact of BCPs on outcomes by stakeholder perspective. Studies from the health care system or provider perspectives were rated as providing the best balance between feasibility and applicability, whereas various study design characteristics (e.g., prospective study designs, use of "length of" or disease-related surrogate markers as primary outcomes, adjusting for specific confounders) were rated highly and are desirable for future studies.