Pharmacists bring value in the form of their knowledge base and a very fine-tuned skill set. The concept of pharmaceutical care has come to the forefront primarily because of all of the work that has occurred in managed care. There are disease management programs, treatment guidelines, protocols, that all have pharmacy as a singular component of a well-integrated system. The effect that pharmacists are able to have on the use of medications benefits the end consumer, the public. As to whether pharmacists are overstepping their bounds, those bounds might be somewhat loosely drawn, in that the sheer potential of the pharmacists' role in health care only now is being realized.
Pharmacists are extremely valuable resources.
That knowledge base is the key to a pharmacist's ability to interact with other members of the health care field. It's not universal. These are areas in which there's a wide body of knowledge supporting the pharmacist's role in working towards better therapeutic outcomes. That's more of a geographic question than a disease-state question. There are areas of the country that are very advanced in promoting the pharmacist's resources.