Purpose A survey was conducted to evaluate the characteristics and structures of postgraduate year 2 (PGY2) ambulatory care pharmacy residency programs in the United States. The survey results can serve as a guide for current and newly emerging programs. Methods A 24-question survey was sent to 138 US PGY2 residency program directors (RPDs) in February 2017 to identify key program characteristics, including program type (single-site or multisite), primary practice site, number of residents, length and type of rotations, staffing requirements, additional residency activities, precepting and teaching opportunities, RPD training and credentials, and number and qualifications of preceptors. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze the findings. Results A 40.6% response rate was achieved. Well over half (57%) of programs had been established within the preceding 5 years. A majority of RPDs reported that their program had 1 (53%) or 2 residents (31%) and/or was a single-site program (80%). Overall, 44 different types of rotations or experiences were offered by the programs. All surveyed programs offered additional teaching opportunities. There were no formal staffing duties in 29% of programs; professional organization membership and conference attendance were highly encouraged but typically not required of residents. Qualifications of the RPD and preceptors closely mirrored those delineated in residency accreditation standards. Conclusion There is an increased need for specialized training in ambulatory care in order to prepare pharmacists for the changing landscape in healthcare. The profession is adapting to this need, as evidenced by the rapid growth of PGY2 ambulatory care residency programs. Understanding characteristics can benefit continued growth to meet the needs of the profession.

Introduction Numerous barriers exist to providing high‐yield pharmacy resident research programming, especially at community health systems where research expertise and resources may be limited. Objectives To describe a feasible educational program structure that other community health system pharmacy residency programs could implement to improve resident research and scholarship skills, and to explore the impact of the programming on indicators of resident preparedness in research activities and system‐wide pharmacist scholarship. Methods We pursued a retrospective quality improvement study of a single community health system's experience with implementing and refining a longitudinal pharmacy resident research educational program. The program began at a single site in 2017 and expanded to a system‐wide curriculum that now serves 22 residents annually across five hospitals. Structured as quarterly, system‐level, single‐day workshops, the educational program is designed to supplement and support site‐level rotations through hands‐on learning of high‐yield skillsets. Assessed indicators of program success included resident survey evaluations of perceived program value and resident preparedness, pharmacist performance in the annual enterprise‐wide research competition, and rate of system pharmacist‐authored publications. Results A refined pharmacy resident research program is described, including challenges and worked solutions to success. Residents consistently rate the value of the learning experience highly and endorse favorable readiness for future research endeavors after residency (modes of 4‐5 on 5‐point Likert scale). The percentage of pharmacist winners of the annual research competition increased from 9% in 2014 to 100% in 2022. The annual rate of pharmacist‐authored publications increased from 0 to 1 per year before 2014 to 17 in the calendar year 2021. Conclusion Community health‐system pharmacy residency programs can provide high‐yield educational programming to equip residents with desired research and scholarship skills through creative and collaborative solutions to identified barriers. Health systems may also realize broader scholarly outputs from pharmacists and preceptors by supporting and lateralizing pharmacy resident research programming.

Disclaimer In an effort to expedite the publication of articles, AJHP is posting manuscripts online as soon as possible after acceptance. Accepted manuscripts have been peer-reviewed and copyedited, but are posted online before technical formatting and author proofing. These manuscripts are not the final version of record and will be replaced with the final article (formatted per AJHP style and proofed by the authors) at a later time.