Harps Food Train Pharmacists to Confidently Prescribe Birth Control

Haprs Food Inc in Arkansas is reshaping how women access birth control—and pharmacists are at the center of the change. After the state passed an oral contraceptive prescribing law last year, allowing pharmacists to prescribe hormonal contraception directly to patients, Harps Food saw both an opportunity and a challenge. They discovered how to move beyond a traditional trial-and-error approach and deliver truly evidence-based, patient-centered contraceptive care.

In this interview, Duane Jones, BSPharm, regional pharmacy supervisor at Harps Food Stores, and Jennifer Griffin, PharmD, MS, clinical pharmacist for Harps Food Stores, describe how they responded by building their own oral contraceptive prescribing protocol rather than simply adopting the state’s template. Drawing on workflows already used in their test-and-treat and medication therapy management programs, the team designed a standardized process that would feel familiar to pharmacists while elevating the quality of care. Their proposal won approval from both the Arkansas State Board of Pharmacy and the State Medical Board, clearing the way for implementation across their pharmacies.

At the heart of the initiative is education. Recognizing that many pharmacists were uneasy about prescribing birth control—uncertain whether they had the depth of knowledge to assess patients and select the most appropriate product—Harps developed a training program grounded in evidence-based medicine to give pharmacists a clear, efficient assessment framework and the confidence to choose the right oral contraceptive from the outset.

Even in more populated areas, patients can wait months for an appointment with an OB-GYN. Pharmacies, with their extended hours and convenient locations, are well-positioned to stand in the gap—offering both prescriptions and education to patients who lack a primary care provider or cannot be seen in a timely manner. Yet shifting patient expectations and normalizing the pharmacy as a routine destination for birth control remains an ongoing challenge that Harps is tackling through marketing and community outreach.

"We wanted to be proactive on the front [and] do a better job of assessing that patient and their needs," Jones said. "Our protocol is centered around everything else we do: making [the] patient the center of our care, which, at the same time, gives our pharmacist much more confidence in selecting the proper oral contraceptive for that patient."