A Strategy to Develop Advanced Pharmacy Practice Experiences

Abstract

Objective. To establish statewide medication, disease management, and other clinical programs to serve as advanced pharmacy practice experience (APPE) training sites for the University of Colorado at Denver and Health Sciences Center School of Pharmacy, and to guarantee year-round support for the programs by providing pharmacy students with the necessary competencies to carry a significant proportion of each program's workload. Methods. Partnerships with pharmacies willing to use students to expand their scope of clinical practice or support existing programs were established. Partners were asked to choose the clinical program(s) they wished implemented or supported and were guaranteed that APPE students would contribute to carrying each program's clinical service workload for 48 week/year under the supervision of the partners' pharmacists. In addition, partners implementing new programs were offered other support, including equipment, supplies, and training and mentoring for their pharmacists. Evaluation. Twenty-two partnerships involving anticoagulation, diabetes, immunization, medication reconciliation, and other clinical programs were established with hospital, community, and community health center pharmacies. The partnerships provided 213 APPE placements in the 2006-2007 academic year. Conclusion. This work demonstrates that by using innovative approaches, a pharmacy school can form new partnerships with hospital, community health center, and community pharmacies, as well as work with existing clinical programs, to create a variety of medication, disease management, and other APPEs to meet its increasing placement needs and evolving accreditation standards.

An Enhanced Community Advanced Pharmacy Practice Experience Model to Improve Patient Care

“…[15][16][17] However, fewer studies have explored how community pharmacies can benefit as APPE placement sites. [18][19][20] This pilot study was unique because it not only quantified the benefits of serving as a community pharmacy APPE placement site, but also looked at the added benefits of participating in an enhanced APPE model. The study's findings demonstrated that the enhanced APPE model enabled the participating pharmacies to provide increased levels of patient care (as compared to the control arm sites) and improved preceptor satisfaction with the APPE.…”

Barriers to Expanding Advanced Pharmacy Practice Experience Site Availability in an Experiential Education Consortium

“…34 As a result, preceptors may better recognize their role in ensuring the future of our profession. 30,31 By using a cooperative approach to scheduling within a consortium, a more accurate evaluation of APPE availability becomes possible.…”

Capacity Ratios to Assess the Solvency of a College's Advanced Pharmacy Practice Experience Program

“…Competition for preceptors and sites is directly related to the capacity of experiential education programs, and a great deal of the literature focuses on delineating barriers to increasing capacity, forming new methods for preceptor and site development, and describing the benefits of precepting student pharmacists. 4,9,[12][13][14][15] Our office is now faced with the task of using the information gained in this analysis to increase capacity in those areas found to be insolvent. Additional research will be needed to calculate capacity ratios for all elective practice experiences in order to find other categories in need of expansion.…”