During their November 18, 2015 meeting, the Board received and considered a petition from several chain pharmacies requesting a delay in the implementation of the national accreditation requirement for pharmacy technician training programs.  The current rule, adopted in June 2013, contains a provision requiring applications for the pharmacy technician certificate received in the Board office after January 1, 2016 to contain evidence of completion of a nationally-accredited pharmacy technician training program.  The petition requests a delay until the year 2020.  In addition, the petitioners suggested changing the requirement from a completion requirement as a qualifier for the pharmacy technician certificate to an enrollment requirement as a qualifier for the pharmacy technician candidate registration.  Following their deliberation, the members determined it appropriate to change the requirement from completion as a qualifier for the pharmacy technician certificate to enrollment as a qualifier for the pharmacy technician candidate registration, and further, requested the Board's Regulation Revision Committee develop a proposed revision to the rules to accomplish that change, and further, to give the Board time to complete the rulemaking process, voted to delay the implementation for one year - from January 1, 2016 to January 1, 2017.  Since the original implementation date was just a few weeks away, the Board voted to issue an Emergency Rule for the one year delay, set the effective date as November 30, 2015, and directed staff to re-publish the Emergency Rule as necessary until the rulemaking process had been completed.  A copy of the Declaration of Emergency & Emergency Rule are available here.