Incorporating Health Information Technology and Pharmacy Informatics in a Pharmacy Professional Didactic Curriculum -with a Team-based Learning Approach

Abstract

Objective. To incorporate a pharmacy informatics program in the didactic curriculum of a team-based learning institution and to assess students' knowledge of and confidence with health informatics during the course. Design. A previously developed online pharmacy informatics course was adapted and implemented into a team-based learning (TBL) 3-credit-hour drug information course for doctor of pharmacy (PharmD) students in their second didactic year. During a period of five weeks (15 contact hours), students used the online pharmacy informatics modules as part of their readiness assurance process. Additional material was developed to comply with the TBL principles. Online pre/postsurveys were administered to evaluate knowledge gained and students' perceptions of the informatics program. Assessment. Eighty-three second-year students (84% response rate) completed the surveys. Participants' knowledge of electronic health records, computerized physician order entry, pharmacy information systems, and clinical decision support was significantly improved. Additionally, their confidence significantly improved in terms of describing health informatics terminology, describing the benefits and barriers of using health information technology, and understanding reasons for systematically processing health information. Conclusion. Students responded favorably to the incorporation of pharmacy informatics content into a drug information course using a TBL approach. Students met the learning objectives of seven thematic areas and had positive attitudes toward the course after its completion.

A Narrative Overview of the Effectiveness of E-learning in Pharmacy Education

“…There was some evidence that e-learning interventions could result in an intention to change practice (outcome level 3 of Kirkpatrick's model) and these studies deserve some further examination as possible predictors for success of e-learning. As would be expected, these studies involved mostly qualified pharmacists [11,12,14,16] with only one study involving pharmacy interns [59] and two studies involving pharmacy undergraduates [23,37]. These seven studies [11,12,14,16,23,37,59] involved several different delivery methods of the e-learning intervention and thus, no relationship could be established between delivery method and success.…”

“…Learning was also assessed subjectively, through pre-, mid-and post-intervention surveys in twenty-six (46.4%) studies [11,12,[14][15][16][17][18][19]23,25,29,30,35,37,[41][42][43]45,46,50,52,56,57,59,62,64] and all but two [19,42] of these studies reported that the e-learning intervention was effective. Taglieri et al, [19] investigated the effect of completion of online virtual patient cases on student performance and confidence in mock clinic visits.…”

“…In six (10.7%) studies, [11,12,16,23,37,59] participants indicated their intention to change their practice in response to knowledge or skills gained from the e-learning intervention (Behaviour). In one study [14], participants reported an actual change in their practice post-intervention.…”

“…Three (5.4%) [25,55,57] of the nine studies that reviewed blended learning methods, failed to assess the effectiveness of the e-learning intervention independently of the face-to-face teaching. Twenty-six (46.4%) studies [11,12,[14][15][16][17][18][19]23,25,29,30,35,37,[41][42][43]45,46,50,52,56,57,59,62,64] measured the effectiveness of e-learning intervention on the basis of self-reported data. These findings are therefore vulnerable to response bias as well as recall bias, when participants were required to make a post-intervention assessment of their pre-intervention skills, knowledge or confidence [65,66].…”

Vital Directions for Pharmacy Education and Practice: Report of the 2017-18 Argus Commission

“…22 Health informatics courses have also been developed at several schools of pharmacy. 16,[23][24][25] As noted in the section on connecting care and modernizing skills, all clinicians should achieve foundational literacy in health informatics and clinical data management to use with individual patients and populations. To fully achieve the potential of learning health systems however, a significantly larger cadre of health IT experts is needed.…”