Minnesota Board of Pharmacy - Minnesota State Legislature

qualified to carry out the duties of a pharmacy technician;
• regulate and define additional substances, not listed in the statutes, which contain
quantities of a substance possessing abuse potential and add them to the appropriate
controlled substance schedule in rule;
• add substances to or delete or reschedule substances listed in the controlled substance
schedules, by rule;
• coordinate the state’s schedules of controlled substances with the federal schedules;
• administer the Minnesota Prescription Monitoring Program.
Although the other health licensing boards are also engaged in licensing, complaint investigation,
disciplinary activities and (in some cases) inspections, they have jurisdiction over professions different
than those for which the Board has jurisdiction. Thus none of the functions of the Board overlap or
duplicate those of other agencies.
Most of the health licensing boards handle licensure examinations by working with national
organizations that develop and administer examinations. Many of the boards use licensure transfer
programs administered by those same organizations. In the case of the Board of Pharmacy, the
organization is the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy (NABP). The NABP developed and
periodically updates two psychometrically validated pharmacist licensure examinations – the North
American Pharmacist Licensure Examination and the Multistate Pharmacy Jurisprudence Examination.
In addition, NABP administers the Licensure Transfer Program that allows pharmacists to more easily
become licensed in a different state.
Consolidating all of the health licensing boards into a single, “umbrella” organization would almost
certainly result in no costs savings or increases in efficiency. The boards all regulate different
professions and work closely with different national organizations. Consequently, the licensing
processes used by one board resemble, but are not identical, to the processes used by the other boards.
In addition, due to the budget problems faced by all state agencies, the boards have not always
expanded staff to keep pace with increased licensing activities. In the case of the Board of Pharmacy,
licensing staff has sometimes had to work overtime during peak licensing periods. For these reasons,
consolidation of the boards would not result in a decrease in the number of staff members working on
licensing.
Similarly, most states that place health licensing boards into an umbrella organization continue to
employ individuals to administer and staff the individual boards. Those individuals have policy
expertise in the area regulated by the board they administer. Those states also continue to employ
individuals to serve as inspectors and complaint investigators. Consequently, consolidation of the
boards would likely not result in a decrease in the number of staff members employed by the boards.
To the contrary, consolidation might very well introduce a new layer of bureaucracy – the upper-level
management and staff necessary to supervise the umbrella organization as a whole.
These conclusions are supported by a report prepared in 2003 at the request of Minnesota’s health
licensing boards. (A copy of that report, which is titled Health Licensing Boards and Governance
Structure, will be provided to the Commission). The author concluded that the literature review and
research she did to prepare the report supported some of the Minnesota Legislative Auditor’s (OLA)
1999 findings, namely: “We found no convincing evidence that any particular organizational
arrangement or process provides an assured solution to any given problem associated with occupational
regulation.”
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