Need for pharmacists will explode over next two decades, PMP reports

Drug Store News, Nov 4, 2002

ALEXANDRIA, Va. -- New research from a consortium of pharmacy groups points to a massive s ort all in available pharmacists to staff the nation's retail and institutional practice settings over the next two decades.

That conclusion was drawn by the Pharmacy Manpower Project at a conference attended by representatives of all practice settings. Their findings indicate that as many as 157,000 pharmacy positions will go unfilled by 2020.

Complete findings are detailed in a final report entitled, "Professionally Determined Need for Pharmacy Services in 2020," and are available at the Web site of the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy, www.aacp.org.

Behind the exploding need for pharmacists, noted conference coordinator David Knapp, Ph.D., is the "demographic imperative" of an aging baby boomer generation. Knapp, who is dean of the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy, told conference participants that the first wave of baby boomers will turn 60 in 2006, dramatically driving up drug utilization. Adults aged 60 and older on average use three times as many medications as adults younger than 60.

Knapp called for a "serious and timely response" to the conference findings and suggested that pharmacists' future patient care role could be jeopardized if there are not enough pharmacists to provide needed services.

Participants at the three-day conference arrived at their conclusions by examining the services patients need and projecting the number of pharmacists required to deliver those services in the coming years. Based on those estimates and the availability of technology and other work-flow enhancements, they predicted that 100,000 pharmacists will be needed or order fulfillment over the next two decades, compared with 136,400 pharmacists currently filling that role. But huge shortfalls are expected to open up in other areas such as primacy care services, noted the report, where 165,000 pharmacists may be needed and where only 30,000 are currently working. In addition, the conference findings predict that the need for pharmacists to provide secondary and tertiary patient care services will jump from the 18,000 currently employed in that role to a total of 165,000 by 2020.

"Conference participants acknowledge that the estimates may not translate into jobs for pharmacists, but point out that the need for their functions will not go away," noted the Pharmacy Manpower Project in a mid-October statement.

In their report, conference participants also voiced support for increasing capacity and pharmaceutical education and practice. According to their findings, the number of positions for pharmacy school faculty and administrators will grow to 3,250 by 2020, compared with 2,600 today. The report calls for the opening of another 15 pharmacy schools to address the shortfall.

The Pharmacy Manpower Project is a nonprofit umbrella group composed of all major pharmacy-related organizations, including the National Association of Chain Drug Stores, the National Community Pharmacists Association, the American Pharmaceutical Association, the National Council of State Pharmacy Association Executives and the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy. Other members include the Academy of Managed Care Pharmacy, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, the American College of Clinical Pharmacy an d the Pharmacy Technician Certification Board.