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In this narrative review, we trace the evolution of health care, clinical pharmacy practice, and pharmacy education in Taiwan and two Southeast Asian countries, Vietnam and Indonesia. In evaluating the current health‐care systems and progress toward health‐care reform, we review the major changes that have impacted pharmacy practice and pharmacy education in each of these countries. The lack of qualified and well‐trained pharmacists has been identified as one of the key barriers to advancement of clinical pharmacy in this region. This shortage is based on a number of factors which include having a pharmacy education system that needs reform and expansion to adequately meet the growing demands of global public health. Many initiatives from organizations such as the World Health Organization, the International Pharmaceutical Federation, and the Federation of Asian Pharmaceutical Associations have influenced the advancement of global pharmacy practice and education. Moreover, we highlight key legislative changes that have impacted clinical pharmacy development in these countries and discuss how foreign policy changes in Taiwan have increased its collaboration with foreign pharmacy schools in Vietnam and Indonesia. Understanding the history and progress of clinical pharmacy education in these countries is important to help shape future collaborations that advance pharmacy practice and improve global health.

There is a need for valid and reliable instruments to focus on medication aspects of health literacy and help healthcare professionals address patients’ barriers to medication use. This cross-sectional study describes the conceptualization, development, and psychometric properties of the first Chinese Medication Literacy Measurement (ChMLM) to assess the level of health literacy on medication use. The 17-item ChMLM (ChMLM-17) and its short form, 13-item ChMLM (ChMLM-13), consist of four sections (vocabulary, over-the-counter labels, prescription labels, and advertisements) to cover six domains of medication-related health literacy. Multistage stratified quota sampling was attempted to recruit a representative sample in Taiwan. Receiver operating characteristic curves were used to identify the cut-off point for differentiating high and low medication literacy. Psychometric analyses were performed (n = 1410) to assess the reliability and validity separately on all samples and sociodemographic subgroups. The 17- and 13-item versions both had high construct validity among all patients and patients with low medication literacy. The developed ChMLM-17 and ChMLM-13 is expected to help healthcare providers and researchers to accurately measure medication-related health literacy and improve medication use in the real-world practice.