On Valentine’s Day, we met with the leadership of the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP) at APhA headquarters for an open and productive conversation about how family physicians and pharmacists can work together. We appreciated the spirit of the discussion and the constructive approach to what might have been challenging issues.

From the outset, it was clear that both organizations and the practitioners who lead them have a patient-centered focus on all issues. We discussed a range of topics, which led me to the insight that we have a great deal in common if we can stay on the same page. We uncovered a few key areas where our respective professions use different terms to describe things. It’s easy to get diverted when one group misinterprets the direction or intent of another, and without good open dialogue, we’re left to interpret what we read.

We view collaborative practice as pharmacists and physicians working together on shared goals for the patient. Some in the AAFP group viewed collaborative practice as pharmacists prescribing independently. We emphasized the importance of health information technology in making physicians aware of immunization records when the immunization is administered in a pharmacy.

The seed for the visit was planted last year. That June, AAFP reported on its website that it had released an informational brief comparing pharmacist and physician educational requirements to fight state legislation permitting pharmacist-administered immunizations. In response, APhA and several other national pharmacy groups sent a letter to AAFP in July that described pharmacists’ education and training and pharmacists’ role in immunization education and administration. In the letter, we requested a meeting.

Last October, AAFP let us know its leaders would be in Washington, DC, in February and agreed to a meeting then. In mid-January, AAFP reported on its website that it had issued a revised position paper to define the professional relationship between pharmacists and family physicians. We learned in our meeting that this particular policy got reviewed as part of a routine 5-year cycle of updating policies. While this was the reason it was reviewed, we did discuss angst among AAFP members regarding possible scope changes by pharmacists and how we might lower the level of concern.

In the position paper, AAFP supported pharmacists as part of “an integrated team-based approach to care” but warned that “independent prescription authority for pharmacists will further fragment the American health care system.”

This introductory discussion with AAFP was a positive development. I believe our goals for patient care are aligned, and I asked AAFP for help in looking for those areas that might knock us off a course toward collaboration. We look forward to seeing them again soon.