The bill amends Chapter 5-19.1 of the General Laws regarding pharmacies by introducing a new section that authorizes pharmacy technicians and pharmacy interns to perform technology-assisted dispensing process validation for medications prepared for distribution by another pharmacy technician or intern within institutional pharmacies. This validation process is defined as the physical verification that ensures the correct drug, drug dosage, and drug form are selected for patient administration.

The bill outlines specific conditions under which this delegation can occur, emphasizing that it must be supervised by a licensed pharmacist and cannot include controlled substances or compounded products unless those products have been previously verified by a licensed pharmacist.

Additionally, the bill mandates that institutional pharmacies document their dispensing process validation policies, maintain an institutional pharmacy-specific training program for pharmacy technicians and interns, and implement a continuous quality assessment system to periodically verify the accuracy of the dispensing process validation. This includes recording any errors that reach the patient and any quality-related events.

The pharmacist-in-charge is responsible for ensuring that the delegation of these tasks does not lead to medication errors. The Board of Pharmacy is also empowered to make, adopt, amend, and repeal rules and regulations necessary for the proper administration and enforcement of this section. The act will take effect upon passage.