InBrief: California Board of Pharmacy Webcasts

Important Notice To Readers of This Essay On November 27, 2013, President Barack Obama signed the Drug Quality and Security Act of 2013 into law. That act has many provisions, but one is to pre-empt all existing and future state serialization and pedigree laws like those that previously existed in California and Florida. Some or all of the information contained in this essay is about some aspect of one or more of those state laws and so that information is now obsolete. It is left here only for historical purposes for those wishing to understand those old laws and the industry’s response to them.The next meeting of the Enforcement Committee of the California Board of Pharmacy is next Tuesday, September 11, 2012.  The Enforcement Committee meetings are where the Board has been discussing issues related to the implementation of the pedigree law.  The full agenda for next week’s meeting can be found here, but here is the extract of the pedigree content:

II. Discussion on the Implementation of California’s Electronic Pedigree Requirements for Prescription Medication    (10 a.m.)

(a) Presentations and Questions from the Pharmaceutical Supply Chain on Their Readiness to Meet California’s Staggered E‐Pedigree Implementation Schedule

(b) Update on the Status of Proposed Regulations to Specify a Unique Identification Number for Prescription Medication, and “Grandfathering” Provisions for Non‐Pedigreed Dangerous Drugs

(c) Discussion Concerning Elements for Possible Regulation Requirements to Permit Inference as Provided by California Business and Professions Code Section 4163.3

(d) General Discussion

(e) 2013 Future Meetings

(f) Closing Comments

The meeting will be held at the Hyatt Regency San Francisco Airport, but in case you aren’t aware, the Board has been webcasting their meetings since the beginning of the year.  You can either watch the meeting webcast live, starting at 9:30am PDT next Tuesday through this link, or you can watch it later after they post the link in the webcast archive.  I’ve watched all or most of the last couple of Enforcement meetings and I am very impressed with the quality of the video and happy with the sound quality most of the time.

A webcast is a great way to “attend” these meetings without actually traveling to California.  In fact, assuming they never have any technical difficulties that cause you to miss out on some or all of the meeting, watching the archived webcast a few days after the event is probably the best way to participate because, like Steve Goodman, you can “…replay all the good parts, and cut out what you don’t like.”

The board members and staff are still getting used to the presence of the camera and the need to ensure that it captures all of the official activity, but of the material I’ve watched I give them a solid “B” grade for making the experience valuable to the remote audience.  This is the future of participatory government (or at least observational government).

As a total coincidence, I am going to be on a little vacation in California next week so I have arranged to attend the meeting in person.  I might experiment with posting a time directory of various speakers so, following the dream of Steve Goodman, you can make your own decisions about what you might want to “replay” and what you might want to “cut out”.  Watch for that sometime after the meeting is over and the archive link is posted.

Dirk.