PCAB Accreditation

We are pleased to announce that we have completed the process to receive accreditation by the Pharmacy Compounding Accreditation Board. We were the second pharmacy in Texas and the first in the Panhandle to receive this award.

As soon at the PCAB Board began accepting applications I started the process to apply. I was anxious to review our entire process of compounding and then have an "expert" come in to evaluate us. This was important to me because even though I thought we had excellent systems in place to ensure quality compounds, I was afraid I had missed something that could benefit our patients.

Accreditation is not yet required to be able to compound, it's just a significant step toward ensuring quality products. Until this process became available we had the guidelines of the Texas State Board of Pharmacy and the United States Pharmacopeia which we still follow as does the FDA when they inspect a drug manufacturer.

There were three steps involved in receiving accreditation.
1. Application. The application is well over 20 pages and the first question alone makes most pharmacies throw the whole thing in the trash.
2. The writing and reviewing of policies and procedures. This is by far the most time consuming step. It was also the most rewarding in that we were able to document why, who and how we do everything that we do. Addressed in this process were issues concerning safety, storage, equipment, sanitation; well the list goes on and on.
3. The physical evaluation. An expert in the field came to the pharmacy to reveiw our facility and our actual compounding practices and interview our staff about their knowledge of compounding procedures.

For more information about PCAB Accreditation see www.pcab.info