New Mexico Allows Remote Supervision of Pharmacy Technicians, Prevents Closing of Local Pharmacy

In a newly published paper entitled Health Extension in New Mexico: An Academic Health Center and the Social Determinants of Disease, researchers analyze a University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center project given the acronym "Health Extension Rural Offices" (aka HEROs) as "a vehicle for its model of health extension." According to the paper, some adjustments were made at the behest of Silver City, NM that allowed improved health services:

UNMHSC College of Pharmacy helped revise New Mexico State Board of Pharmacy regulations to permit pharmacists in larger towns to use a telepharmacy service to supervise local pharmacy technicians in rural and frontier counties. Initiated by the local HERO agent, telepharmacy will permit the local pharmacy to remain open, which is a health and economic benefit to the community.

This happened sometime probably in early 2009, as the paper was submitted in July, accepted in October and finally published now in the first Annals of Family Medicine of 2010.