Credentialing and privileging for pharmacists

Abstract

he privileging and credentialing processes used by health systems have evolved over the past 30 years, and the pace of that change is increasing. This evolution is driven by society’s interest in protecting the public’s health, liability law, and the emergence of regulation in response to these issues. This article answers basic questions that pharmacists may have about the privileging and cre-dentialing processes and explains the purposes, terminology, rationale, and processes of clinical privileging. The differences between privileging and credentialing are explained, and background information about the privileging of other health profes-sions is also provided. A glossary of terms can be found in the appendix, and several case studies are included in this article. What is credentialing? Creden-tialing is the process used by health care organizations to validate profes-sional licensure, clinical experience, and preparation for specialty prac-tice. Health care professionals must have some form of credentialing be-fore they are hired by a health care system and before they are granted specific patient care privileges. For pharmacists, this process has gener-ally been limited to verification by the health system’s human resources