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Is There a Pharmacist-Patient Privilege?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 April 2021

David B. Brushwood
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Extract

Under a variety of circumstances, courts of law have attempted to compel pharmacists to publicly disclose confidential information contained within the pharmacists’ prescription drug records. The disclosure of patient medication records maintained by a pharmacist has been sought in a civil action against a drug manufacturer, a child custody proceeding, a civil action against a physician, and criminal prosecutions of a pharmacist and a physician A request for production of clearly confidential information places the pharmacist in a dilemma. The Code of Ethics of the American Pharmaceutical Association allows for the unauthorized release of a pharmacist's professional records only where it is required in the best interests of the patient or demanded by the law. Therefore, pharmacists have sought judicial clarification of the circumstances under which the law demands the release of information contained within confidential patient medication records.

Type
Article
Information
Law, Medicine and Healthcare , Volume 12 , Issue 2 , April 1984 , pp. 63 - 67
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Law, Medicine and Ethics 1984

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