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COMMUNITY PHARMACY PRACTICe transformation: cURRICULAR fRAMEWORK

Vision: Pharmacist graduates of all colleges/schools of pharmacy will be able to drive practice transformation, equipped with the knowledge and skills to immediately contribute to the design, implementation/delivery, evaluation, and improvement of sustainable patient care services alongside the provision of dispensing services in community pharmacies nationwide.

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DOWNLOAD THE fRAMEWORK HERE

how to use this framework

Advocacy

Community pharmacy faculty and ACT Champions can use this Framework as supporting evidence to underscore the importance and immediacy of preparing graduates to engage in community pharmacy practice transformation. This document can be utilized as a position paper or a call to action supporting the notion that all schools and colleges of pharmacy should work towards achieving the Framework’s vision.

Course Design

Schools and colleges of pharmacy who wish to increase their program’s efforts to prepare graduates to participate and drive community pharmacy practice transformation can use this document as direction and inspiration as they engage in curricular and co-curricular design at the course and activity level.

Evaluation

Schools and colleges of pharmacy already have community pharmacy practice transformation education within their curriculum. This document can be helpful to inventory, evaluate and identify areas of opportunity to enhance their efforts in this area.

Quality Assurance & Improvement in Experiential Education

Experiential education administrators can find the Framework helpful as they work to identify and collaborate with community pharmacies who are actively engaging or who are interested in engaging in practice transformation. Experiential rotations in community pharmacy settings, at any level, can be designed to include tasks and assignments that map to the domains found in this document to help spark new, or amplify existing transformation efforts.

Curricular Revision

Doctor of Pharmacy programs who are undertaking curricular revision can use this document to create and justify community pharmacy practice transformation related program goals, learning outcomes, and curricular threads that cut across the program and are interwoven with the delivery of other content.

FRAMEWORK TOOLKIT

The ACT Pharmacy Collaborative has compiled the following publicly-available resources to be used by faculty, pharmacists, and students nationwide. Individuals who submit resources for this toolkit are in effect giving permission for others to refer to and utilize the materials. Users are encouraged to email the individual who created the material(s) should additional information regarding use of the materials be needed.

Suggested citation for resources utilized: [Author]. [Institution]. [Title of resource]. ACT Pharmacy Collaborative. 2023. Available at www.actforpharmacy.com/framework.

Curricular Resources

Curriculum Rubrics
These rubrics can be used to aid in evaluating how each domain of the framework is addressed at your institution. 

Template ACT Framework Presentation
This presentation template could be used to aid faculty in discussing the ACT Pharmacy Collaborative Framework with members at their own institutions (Megan Smith, UAMS, msmith4@uams.edu)

Experiential Education Resources

How to Design an Advanced Community APPE
This document can be used to guide the creation of an advanced community pharmacy APPE rotation experience (Megan Smith, UAMS, msmith4@uams.edu)

Questions for Community Sites
This document contains example questions for Experiential Education Departments to ask when Evaluating a Site For Community Practice Transformation (Shelby Jensen, UNMC, shelby.bennett@unmc.edu)

1

The Community Pharmacist Practitioner

Develop a career vision and foster a strong understanding and commitment to community pharmacy practice transformation including the skills and attitudes necessary to successfully provide patient care services in communities.

Example Activities:

  • Fostering identity formation throughout the curriculum: This project asks students to draft a personalized mission statement or philosophy of care using key philosophy elements, such as the role of a pharmacists on a care team. This outcome may be achieved through goal planning and reflective assignments, attendance at professional meetings, or annual completion of a pharmacy professionalism instrument. (Rachel Allen, University of Washington, allen26@uw.edu)

  • Approaches to Precepting IPPE and APPE students (docx): Several approaches to strengthen professional identity are described in the attached document. These are easy to implement when working individually with students. (Rachel Allen, University of Washington, allen26@uw.edu)

2

Evidence-based Community Pharmacy Services

Inventively translate evidence into the design, implementation and evaluation of pharmacy services assuring quality and value to the patient, practice and community.

Example Activities:​

  • PHM 515 Adherence Practicum Student Overview (docx): This activity uses patient adherence modalities and motivational interviewing strategies to address patient non-adherence with a medication regimen. Student pharmacists will work individually to interview a simulated patient, identify and investigate potential reasons for non-adherence, draft a patient medication schedule and counsel the patient using motivational interviewing strategies to affect change. (Chris Daly, University at Buffalo, cjdaly@buffalo.edu)

3

Extended Care Team, Community Partners & Payor

Collaborate with a broad array of health professionals, community service partners and payors to achieve patient, population, and public health goals.

Example Activities:

  • IPE Project: Conduct human-centered design (HCD) projects that require student pharmacists to work with a diverse array of individuals to identify and solve design challenges. This outcome can be evaluated by written report, peer evaluation, or presentation rubrics. (Nicholas Leon, Thomas Jefferson University, nicholas.leon@jefferson.edu)

  • Showcase Real-World Collaborations: This activity utilizes student organizations to invite guest speaker events in which speakers describe exemplary examples of working creatively with a broad array of professionals to achieve patient, payer, population, and public health goals (Nicholas Leon, Thomas Jefferson University, nicholas.leon@jefferson.edu)​

4

Caring for Populations & Communities

Incorporate public health and community-based priorities in developing individualized care plans for diverse patient populations.

Example Activities:

  • Patient Assistance Programs: The goal of this activity is to gain knowledge of these processes to develop programs at impacted pharmacy settings. In addition to knowledge, higher levels of application are needed to apply these principles in a practice setting. Teach by lecture, active learning exercises, or case reviews for lower-level learning objectives. Students can use a Clinical Check List that aims to apply common standards seen at the practice setting level. (Chris Daly, University at Buffalo, cjdaly@buffalo.edu)

  • Developing a Clinic Service (docx): This is a group activity that asks participants to review a clinic's scorecard and identify a service(s) needed for that population. (Megan Smith, UAMS, msmith4@uams.edu)

5

Pharmacy Workflow & Technology

Champion the development of pharmacy team members with enhanced roles to enable patient care services while integrating technology and systems to support the delivery of services.

Example Activities:

6

Vision, Sustainability & Scalability

Drive the utilization of business models that enable cost-effective and value-based pharmacy services that are sustainable and scalable.

Example Activities:

For more resources, check out faculty resources provided by the National Community Pharmacists Association.

If you have a resource you would like to share in the Framework Toolkit, please submit your resource here.

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