Louisiana State Policies Prove Problematic for Pharmacist–Physician Collaboration
ESSAY — Volume 17 — August 20, 2020
PEER REVIEWED
Map of Louisiana depicts boundaries of parishes, census tracts designated as low-income health professional shortage areas (HPSAs), and census tracts designated as geographic HPSAs. Eighty-four percent of the state’s land area is either a geographic HPSA or a low-income HPSA. The 7 hospital pharmacies and 15 community pharmacies surveyed in our study are distributed fairly evenly through the state. Two hospital pharmacies and 1 community pharmacy are indicated as Well-Ahead partner pharmacies.
Figure.
Location of geographic health professional shortage areas (HPSAs), low-income HPSAs, and 22 pharmacies that participated in a study on pharmacist–physician collaboration through collaborative drug therapy management (CDTM) agreements. A geographic HPSA designation is determined by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) as the ratio of the number of primary care providers to the number of people in a census tract, and a low-income HPSA designation is determined as the ratio of the number of primary care providers to the number of low-income people in a census tract (11).
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