The Benefit of Continuing Professional Development for Continuing Pharmacy Education

Copyright © 2005-2014 Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education. Used with permission.

CPD Components

Reflect: Self-assessment of personal or organization needs or goals.

Plan: Defining objectives, creating formal and informal learning opportunities, defining measures of success, articulating plan with colleagues.

Learn: Implementing the personalized plan.

Evaluate: Assessing learning effectiveness and impact on performance and relevant outcomes.

Apply: Incorporating learned knowledge, skills, and attitudes into practice.

The following is an example of using the CPD model to facilitate practice change:

Pharmacist Jane Smith reflects on her practice and finds that non-adherence issues with diabetic patients during her MTM consultations are limiting the success of many of her MTM interventions. As a result of her reflection, she would like to incorporate motivational interviewing techniques during her MTM sessions in an attempt to improve patient outcomes. During the CPD planning phase, she develops SMART objectives for this goal (specific, measurable, agreed upon, realistic, and time-related) and develops and documents a plan for implementation. Her SMART goal is to incorporate motivational interviewing techniques for all diabetes-related MTM consultations starting next month. For her documented learning plan, she plans to review articles from the literature on motivational interviewing, participate in an online webinar for which she earns two CPE credit hours, and requests a “sit in” evaluation from the clinical coordinator of her division for verbal feedback. After applying the new interviewing techniques, she assesses whether medication adherence rates have improved in patients who she has provided care for and documents her achievement in her electronic portfolio for annual evaluation purposes.