Pharmacy & Therapeutics Committee

The Pharmacy & Therapeutics Committee, composed of Kaiser Permanente contracted clinicians from various medical specialties across the state, follows these guiding principles:

  • The ultimate responsibility of the committee is to Kaiser Permanente's consumer-elected governance board.
  • The committee assumes they will be caring for the same group of patients a decade from now and focuses on the best long term interest of their patients.
  • The committee uses an evidence-based decision making process, putting stronger emphasis on clinical data than expert opinion.
  • Besides evaluating the efficacy and safety of drug treatments, the committee also makes a value judgment about cost vs. benefit.

Evaluation process

The decision to add a medication to the agenda for review by the Pharmacy & Therapeutics Committee is dependent upon several factors, including demand for a medication and the frequency of requests received for an individual drug, as well as the availability of published literature and controlled trials supporting its use.

Requests must include reasoning, suggestions for appropriate restrictions or usage guidelines, and references to relevant literature. The committee support staff will compile the review and assess the request.

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