This product is an ASHP Learning Center activity.

The American Society of Health-System Pharmacists is accredited by the Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education as a provider of continuing pharmacy education with Commendation.

This self-paced, online professional certificate is designed for pharmacy technicians who are interested in expanding their knowledge and skills in specialty pharmacy.

The Specialty Pharmacy Certificate is self-guided, with online learning activities that have been created for pharmacists and pharmacy technicians seeking to expand their skills in specialty pharmacy.

A learner begins with the Specialty Pharmacy Fundamentals, where the well-rounded curriculum gives the essential information on business models and operations of specialty pharmacies, patient management, specialty pharmacy accreditations, structuring outcomes to determine value within a specialty pharmacy, and specialty pharmacy disease state overviews. In order to move to the next step, a learner will need to pass the comprehensive assessment of the fundamental material.

Next, the learner will take a deep dive into topics and skills needed as a specialty pharmacy technician through the Advanced Concepts for Specialty Pharmacy Technicians track. These topics and skills include technician administrative duties, complex problem-solving and communication skills, analytics, documentation, and additional information on specialty disease states that is tailored to what technicians need to know.

Once a learner has completed the Specialty PharmacyFundamentals and the Advanced Concepts for Specialty Pharmacy Technicians track educational curriculum, they will have the opportunity to complete the track final exam. Once the learner successfully completes the track final exam (minimum 80% passing rate; unlimited attempts permitted), they will earn the professional certificate.

Specialty Pharmacy 101
ACPE: 0204-0000-23-735-H04-P & T
1 contact hour

Learning Objectives:

• Explain key specialty pharmacy terms and abbreviations.
• Compare stakeholder priorities in specialty pharmacy.
• Summarize key elements in the landscape of specialty pharmacy.

Specialty Pharmacy Organizational Models and Program Designs
ACPE: 0204-0000-23-736-H04-P & T
1.75 contact hours

Learning Objectives:

• Explain the three types of procurement models for sourcing medications administered in a health care setting (white/brown/clear bagging).
• Apply the appropriate billing method(s) for specialty medications.
• Identify differences among four different specialty pharmacy organizational structures.
• Develop a new specialty pharmacy business plan.
• Identify considerations for developing a specialty pharmacy program.

Specialty Pharmacy Patient Management
ACPE: 0204-0000-23-737-H04-P & T
1.25 contact hours

Learning Objectives:

• Explain specialty pharmacy documentation requirements.
• Discuss the tenets of specialty medication monitoring.
• Describe multidisciplinary collaborative opportunities in specialty pharmacy.
• Apply specialty medication patient education and counseling principles.
• Assess specialty medication adherence.
• Describe medication error and adverse event reporting methods.

Introduction to Specialty Pharmacy Medications
ACPE: 0204-0000-23-738-H04-P & T
1 contact hour

Learning Objectives:

• Contrast generic medications with biosimilar products.
• Explain the elements of safe medication handling and disposal.
• Evaluate strategies for drug access.

Operations: The Backbone of Specialty Pharmacy
ACPE: 0204-0000-23-739-H04-P & T
1 contact hour

Learning Objectives:

• Differentiate the roles of specialty pharmacy staff from retail and hospital pharmacy staff.
• Explain the main steps of the specialty pharmacy supply chain.
• Predict potential challenges associated with specialty medication delivery.

From Prescription to Patient: A Specialty Medication's Journey
ACPE: 0204-0000-23-740-H04-P & T
1 contact hour

Learning Objectives:

• Define the important elements of a specialty prescription.
• Analyze potential issues associated with ordering a specialty medication.
• Describe a specialty medication benefits investigation and prior authorization.
• Assess specialty prescription dispensing factors.
• Summarize the specialty prescription verification process.
• Differentiate specialty prescription delivery requirements and methods.

From Diagnosis to Treatment: The Journey for Patients with Specialty Conditions
ACPE: 0204-0000-23-741-H04-P & T
1 contact hour

Learning Objectives:

• Summarize financial assistance options for patients with specialty conditions and serving the underserved.
• Differentiate between manufacturer-provided and pharmacy-provided patient education resources.
• Interpret patient satisfaction results.

Specialty Pharmacy Accreditation and Certifications
ACPE: 0204-0000-23-742-H04-P & T
1 contact hour

Learning Objectives:

• Define specialty pharmacy accreditation.
• Assess the importance and benefits of specialty pharmacy accreditation.
• Categorize the different specialty pharmacy accreditations available.
• Differentiate between various pharmacist and pharmacy technician certifications.

Outcomes and Value of Specialty Pharmacy
ACPE: 0204-0000-23-743-H04-P & T
2.5 contact hours

Learning Objectives:

• Describe the need and methods to collect, track, and report disease-specific outcomes in specialty pharmacy practice.
• Select clinical performance outcomes measures to collect, based on key institution, patient, disease state, and stakeholder requirement factors.
• Design quality improvement initiatives to advance outcomes monitoring and response.
• Measure the clinical and economic impact of specialty pharmacy staff actions.
• Assess how the hub-and-spoke information dissemination model promotes the value of specialty pharmacy.
• Apply operational and financial metrics to assess specialty pharmacy performance.
• Critique specialty pharmacy performance based on a scorecard.

Common Specialty Pharmacy Service Lines
ACPE: 0204-0000-23-744-H04-P & T
2 contact hours

Learning Objectives:

• Summarize the basics of inflammatory diseases.
• Summarize the basics of oncology and hematology.
• Summarize the basics of neurology.
• Summarize the basics of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and hepatitis.
• Summarize the basics of cystic fibrosis.
• Summarize the basics of hemophilia and PAH.

Technician Administrative Duties
ACPE: 0204-0000-23-745-H04-T
2.5 contact hours

Learning Objectives:

• Identify the steps commonly required during specialty patient enrollment.
• Differentiate common insurance types, including and their inclusions and limitations.
• Assess prescription triage to decrease time-to-treat.
• Analyze frequently encountered prior authorization and appeal processes.
• Compare financial assistance options to increase patient therapy starts, including foundation and manufacturer programs.
• Solve patient-specific barriers to care through using team communication tools.

Beyond Dispensing: Advanced Pharmacy Technician Roles
ACPE: 0204-0000-23-746-H04-T
2.25 contact hours

Learning Objectives:

• Compare entry- and advanced-level pharmacy technician roles in specialty pharmacy.  
• Assess essential skills required in advanced pharmacy technician roles in specialty pharmacy.  
• Identify required education, certification, and experience required in advanced specialty technician roles.  
• Develop advanced role preparation in a current job role.

Complex Problem-Solving and Communication for Specialty Patients
ACPE: 0204-0000-23-747-H04-T
1.5 contact hours

Learning Objectives:

• Identify the necessary aptitude and skills for increasing patient advocacy.
• Predict patient communication needs to prevent delays in therapy from shipping and/or storage issues.
• Choose appropriate patient triage for when a patient issue falls outside of the pharmacy technician scope.

Analytics, Documentation, and Other Skills
ACPE: 0204-0000-23-748-H04-T
2.25 contact hours

Learning Objectives:

• Demonstrate the math skills frequently used by pharmacy technicians in specialty pharmacy.
• Summarize appropriate documentation in an electronic health record.
• Prioritize tasks to decrease errors.
• Differentiate pharmacy technician scope inclusions and limitations regarding medication safety and adverse drug events.

Inflammatory and Neurology Overview
ACPE: 0204-0000-23-749-H01-T
1.25 contact hours

Learning Objectives:

• Identify indications, medications, dosage forms, essential chart elements, and manufacturers of inflammatory specialty medications.
• Given a patient case, analyze a chart for a patient with inflammatory disease for completeness.
• Identify indications, medications, dosage forms, essential chart elements, and manufacturers of neurology specialty medications.
• Given a patient case, analyze a chart for a patient with neurologic disease for completeness.

Oncology, Rare Diseases, and Other Specialty Conditions Overview
ACPE: 0204-0000-23-750-H01-T
1.75 contact hours

Learning Objectives:

• Identify indications, medications, dosage forms, essential chart elements, and manufacturers of oncology specialty medications.
• Given a patient case, analyze a chart for a patient taking oncology specialty medications for completeness.
• Summarize characteristics of rare diseases.
• Differentiate other common specialty conditions requiring specialty medications.
• Identify the role of infusions in specialty pharmacy.

Dana Harman, PharmD, MBA, CSP
Specialty Pharmacy Manager
University of Missouri Health Care
Columbia, Missouri

Bernice Man, PharmD, BCSP, CSP, CPHQ
Clinical Pharmacy Manager
University of Chicago Medicine
Chicago, Illinois

Heather McCoy, BA, CPhT-Adv
Pharmacy Compliance Coordinator
UK Specialty Pharmacy and Infusion Services, University of Kentucky
Lexington, Kentucky

Ashley Nixon-Mongler, PharmD, BCACP
Clinical Pharmacist
University of Missouri Health Care
Columbia, Missouri

Autumn Zuckerman, PharmD, BCPS, AAHIVP, CSP
Director, Health Outcomes and Research
Vanderbilt University Medical Center
Nashville, Tennessee

In accordance with our accreditor’s Standards of Integrity and Independence in Accredited Continuing Education, ASHP requires that all individuals in control of content disclose all financial relationships with ineligible companies. An individual has a relevant financial relationship if they have had a financial relationship with ineligible company in any dollar amount in the past 24 months and the educational content that the individual controls is related to the business lines or products of the ineligible company.
An ineligible company is any entity producing, marketing, re-selling, or distributing health care goods or services consumed by, or used on, patients. The presence or absence of relevant financial relationships will be disclosed to the activity audience.

• No one in control of the content of this activity has a relevant financial relationship (RFR) with an ineligible company.

This online activity consists of a combined total of 16 learning modules. Pharmacy technicians are eligible to receive a total of 25 hours of continuing education credit by completing all 16 modules within this professional certificate. Pharmacists are eligible to receive a total of 13.5 hours of continuing education credit by completing the 10 modules within the Specialty Pharmacy Fundamentals.

Participants must participate in the entire activity and complete the evaluation and all required components to claim continuing pharmacy education credit online at ASHP Learning Center. Follow the prompts to claim credit and view your statement of credit within 60 days of completing the activity.

Important Note – ACPE 60 Day Deadline:
Per ACPE requirements, CPE credit must be claimed within 60 days of being earned. To verify that you have completed the required steps and to ensure your credits have been reported to CPE Monitor, check your NABP eProfile account to validate that your credits were transferred successfully before the ACPE 60-day deadline. After the 60-day deadline, ASHP will no longer be able to award credit for this activity.

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