AHPA White Paper: Good Herbal Compounding and Dispensing Practices
The American Herbal Products Association (AHPA) recently released a guide for practitioners who compound herbal formulations for clients based on one-on-one consultations. We have agreed to share this document with our members as part of our ongoing partnership with AHPA and ask that you consider take a minute to read it over and share any feedback you may have.
White Paper: Good Herbal Compounding and Dispensing Practices is a free resource drafted by a working group of the AHPA Chinese Herbal Products Committee. The document is intended to provide best practice guidelines for any practitioner who compounds herbal formulations for their clients following one-to-one consultations. The white paper is based on standard good manufacturing practice concepts such as sanitation of facilities and equipment, quality control practices, documentation of procedures, and record-keeping.
It takes the position that practitioners should use best practices to protect the health and safety of their patients when compounding formulas in a clinical setting. And, while AHPA is acutely aware of relevant federal regulations and best practice guidelines in general, they don’t have experience applying these guidelines in practice.
For this reason AHPA has requested input from our members and ask that you share any specific feedback you may have. They are eager to receive ideas about how the document may be improved, or suggestions for specific practices not covered that should be included.
AHPA believes in self-regulation of best practice standards as a core principle of the herbal industry, and that these practices protect practitioners, consumers and patients. In addition, it is the hope of AHPA that by adopting these guidelines practitioners will be in compliance with the protections currently allowed by FDA regulations with regard to herbal compounding in a clinical setting after one-to-one consultations.
This document is not intended to set any rules, regulations or requirements for how these practices occur, but rather seeks to offer guidelines that may be useful to practitioners.
Please send your feedback or suggestions to the American Herbalist Guild at office@americanherbalistsguild.com. We’ll compile everything we receive and forward it to AHPA.
White Paper: Good Herbal Compounding and Dispensing Practices is a free resource drafted by a working group of the AHPA Chinese Herbal Products Committee. The document is intended to provide best practice guidelines for any practitioner who compounds herbal formulations for their clients following one-to-one consultations. The white paper is based on standard good manufacturing practice concepts such as sanitation of facilities and equipment, quality control practices, documentation of procedures, and record-keeping.
It takes the position that practitioners should use best practices to protect the health and safety of their patients when compounding formulas in a clinical setting. And, while AHPA is acutely aware of relevant federal regulations and best practice guidelines in general, they don’t have experience applying these guidelines in practice.
For this reason AHPA has requested input from our members and ask that you share any specific feedback you may have. They are eager to receive ideas about how the document may be improved, or suggestions for specific practices not covered that should be included.
AHPA believes in self-regulation of best practice standards as a core principle of the herbal industry, and that these practices protect practitioners, consumers and patients. In addition, it is the hope of AHPA that by adopting these guidelines practitioners will be in compliance with the protections currently allowed by FDA regulations with regard to herbal compounding in a clinical setting after one-to-one consultations.
This document is not intended to set any rules, regulations or requirements for how these practices occur, but rather seeks to offer guidelines that may be useful to practitioners.
Please send your feedback or suggestions to the American Herbalist Guild at office@americanherbalistsguild.com. We’ll compile everything we receive and forward it to AHPA.