Applications of the Health Belief Model and Continuing Professional Development for Emergency Preparedness and Response

Continuing Professional Development as a Strategy for Emergency Preparedness and Response

Given the current pandemic, this is an opportune time to apply the Continuing Professional Development (CPD) model to assess and facilitate pharmacists’ readiness and ability to adequately serve their patients and communities. Emergency preparedness and response require self-motivation, commitment, and efforts to identify areas in need of improvement and plan of action to close the gap in attitudes, knowledge, and skills.

Continuing professional development is an approach to lifelong learning that requires active planning and implementation of formal and informal learning activities to help the pharmacist maintain professional competence to support achievement of their career goals and growth. Components of the CPD cycle, including reflect, plan, learn/act, evaluate, record, and review.⁵

Continuing professional development can be applied to facilitate and support pharmacist educators, practitioners, and students to expand knowledge, skills and competencies in the area of emergency preparedness and response during disasters and pandemics (eg, COVID-19) to provide more effective patient-centered care and population-based services. In pursuing CPD, pharmacists also contribute to the quality improvement of an organization and the pharmacy profession. Application of the CPD components related to emergency preparedness and response is illustrated in Table 2.

One approach to pursuing CPD is through volunteering for a local or regional Medical Reserve Corp to prepare for and respond to disasters and emergencies. Doing so further supports that CPD activities can be within and outside of the typical practice or work setting. Finally, practitioners and educators, especially young pharmacists who apply the CPD model for their lifelong learning, further demonstrate and support the “seven-star pharmacist” concept. This concept, which was introduced in 2014 by the World Health Organization, highlights the importance of being a “lifelong learner, in addition to caregiver, decision-maker, communicator, manager, teacher, and leader” to remain as a competent healthcare team member.⁶

It is also important to be proactive to empower, promote, and facilitate opportunities and resources for pharmacists in emergency preparedness and response. Educators and pharmacists can lead by example and use the CPD model to set goals and plans for their lifelong learning, including further training and/or volunteering to prepare and respond to public health emergencies, and to further advance and document the pharmacist’s contributions and impact in public health.

Call to Action to Address Emergency Preparedness and Response During a Pandemic

Given the unprecedented impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the healthcare system, pharmacists’ readiness must be expanded to include education and continuing professional development in emergency preparedness and response. Thus, we recommend that the call to action should be applied to education and practice at three levels: education and CPD, patient-centered care at the micro level, and population-based interventions at the macro level.

Recommendations for education and continuing professional development include: encourage a wider adoption, application, and use of CPD and incorporation of HBM in education and continuing professional development for pharmacists and pharmacy-based training programs. For example, HBM is currently used in the American Pharmacists Association’s pharmacy-based immunization certificate training program and should also be used in addressing COVID-19 testing and preparing for vaccinations as outlined in Table 1. The International Pharmaceutical Federation has recommended that continuing professional development be a requirement for practicing pharmacists to maintain competence.⁹ This will ensure pharmacists’ readiness as frontline responders for public health emergencies.

At the micro level, applying the Pharmacists’ Patient Care Process (PPCP)¹⁰ is essential to enhance patients’ outcomes during public health emergencies as outlined in the Pharmacy Organizations’ Joint Policy Recommendations to Combat the COVID-19 Pandemic.¹¹ Specifically, encourage pharmacists to utilize the CPD model and provide training for them to expand their knowledge and skills to test, treat, and vaccinate patients during a pandemic. These expanded scopes for pharmacists will enable them to enhance patients’ economic, clinical, and humanistic outcomes (ECHO) as reflected in this healthcare outcome model.

At the macro level, engagement in population-based interventions and policy-decision-making is becoming more critical for developing policies and programs related to emergency preparedness and response. Specifically, continuing to advocate for expanding pharmacists’ roles and scope of practice is vital during public health emergencies and beyond . Pharmacists’ contributions and documentation of their value-added services during emergencies will enable and strengthen the case for provider status. Moreover, it is important to identify strategies to overcome challenges, educate legislators and policy-makers, and employ sustainable business models for direct reimbursement for pharmacists’ services during and after the pandemic, as suggested in the Joint Policy Statement.¹¹ In summary, pharmacists’ response to this call to action will further support their ongoing contributions and expansion of their role in public health to better meet the needs of patients on the micro level and society on the macro level.

On August 18, 2020, the Healthy People 2030 Initiative was launched.¹² This initiative of the United States Department of Health and Human Services includes the establishment of the vision, mission, and principles to achieve the main goals, specific objectives, and plan of action. Specifically, one of the objective is to increase the percentage of adults who are ready for a disease outbreak after getting information on emergency preparedness - PREP-D02.” Moreover, there is a developmental status to increase the percentage of adults who participate in emergency preparedness for outbreaks of an infectious disease after recently receiving information the outbreaks. ¹²

Heeding our call to action as outlined herein will empower student pharmacists and pharmacists to continue their professional development toward the achievement of Healthy People 2030 goals. Ultimately, this will enhance the preparedness and response to public health emergencies for the nation during the pandemic and beyond.