Pharmacists can manage medicines through agreements with healthcare providers

Pharmacists can manage patients’ medicines with healthcare providers under signed agreements. This covers Rhode Island pharmacists with advanced training and experience relevant to the care in their agreements. Agreements must be voluntary and follow clinical guidelines, standards of care, and health department conditions and limits. Pharmacists must have a pharmacy bachelor’s degree plus postgraduate training or a doctor of pharmacy degree. Other continuing education providers must be approved by the collaborating healthcare provider for the agreement’s scope. The law took effect on July 1, 2026.

Care teams can start working under an agreement when all required paperwork is complete. These rules apply to pharmacists and healthcare providers who sign agreements to manage patients’ medicines. No separate approval or denial process is required. The people signing the agreement must answer the board’s questions and clarify issues about it. The law took effect on July 1, 2026.

Pharmacists can perform simple laboratory tests classified as waived under federal laboratory rules. The pharmacy definition limits laboratory testing to federally waived tests, a category of simple tests. Ordering and evaluating tests for medicine management requires physician supervision or direct consultation. Those tests must relate directly to medicine treatment and follow approved rules for the care setting. Evaluating those results cannot include diagnosing a condition. The law took effect on July 1, 2026.

The law does not define a collaborative practice committee or specifically name it in its protection from lawsuits. This concerns the committee described in the deleted wording as advising the health director about agreements between pharmacists and healthcare providers. The remaining protection concerns disciplinary proceedings and other official actions performed in good faith. The law took effect on July 1, 2026.