That was the title of an opinion piece published on July 19 in the Wall Street Journal (subscription required). We all have Dean Pete Vanderveen of the University of Southern California School of Pharmacy to thank for this very succinct, articulate viewpoint.

Dean Vanderveen describes to the world what many of us in pharmacy have been saying—that pharmacists can play a major role in the provision of primary care, especially for the millions of new folks who will be enrolled in health plans as the Affordable Care Act is implemented. You may recall that we met last summer with the White House to pitch pharmacists’ role in primary care, and we’ve continued to work with medicine to ensure there’s no worry regarding “scope creep.” We are emphasizing that our goal is to improve patient care, not usurp physician authority.

To quote Dean Vanderveen, “Pharmacists are not spoiling for a turf war with physicians. The two professions already team up under ‘collaborative practice’ agreements as in Asheville and Los Angeles that clearly define what the pharmacist can and cannot do.”

For our part, we’ve got a lot of work to do if this vision is to become a reality, but we’re working on it. I believe we are doing that as collaboratively as possible.

I would love to have more examples like the ones cited in the opinion piece that describe the safety-net clinics in major metropolitan areas where physicians, pharmacists, and nurses are teaming up to improve care and lower costs in a world where the medically underserved address chronic homelessness, low literacy, and unemployment. Please let us know if you are aware of practice models that are working.

Let’s continue to spread the word about how pharmacists can help fill the gap in the number of primary care providers for our nation’s population!