Skip to main content

Main menu

  • Articles
    • Current
    • Early Release
    • Archive
    • Rufus A. Lyman Award
    • Theme Issues
    • Special Collections
  • Authors
    • Author Instructions
    • Submission Process
    • Submit a Manuscript
    • Call for Papers - Intersectionality of Pharmacists’ Professional and Personal Identity
  • Reviewers
    • Reviewer Instructions
    • Call for Mentees
    • Reviewer Recognition
    • Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
  • About
    • About AJPE
    • Editorial Team
    • Editorial Board
    • History
  • More
    • Meet the Editors
    • Webinars
    • Contact AJPE
  • Other Publications

User menu

Search

  • Advanced search
American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education
  • Other Publications
American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education

Advanced Search

  • Articles
    • Current
    • Early Release
    • Archive
    • Rufus A. Lyman Award
    • Theme Issues
    • Special Collections
  • Authors
    • Author Instructions
    • Submission Process
    • Submit a Manuscript
    • Call for Papers - Intersectionality of Pharmacists’ Professional and Personal Identity
  • Reviewers
    • Reviewer Instructions
    • Call for Mentees
    • Reviewer Recognition
    • Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
  • About
    • About AJPE
    • Editorial Team
    • Editorial Board
    • History
  • More
    • Meet the Editors
    • Webinars
    • Contact AJPE
  • Follow AJPE on Twitter
  • LinkedIn
Article CommentaryCOMMENTARY

Ensuring Doctor of Pharmacy Graduates Have the Essential Competencies for Innovative Practice

Nisreen Mourad, See-Won Seo and Abby Kahaleh
American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education March 2023, 87 (2) ajpe9100; DOI: https://doi.org/10.5688/ajpe9100
Nisreen Mourad
aLebanese International University, School of Pharmacy, Bekaa, Lebanon
PharmD, MSc
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
See-Won Seo
bAlbany College of Pharmacy Health and Sciences, Albany, New York
PharmD
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Abby Kahaleh
cRoosevelt University, College of Science Health & Pharmacy, Schaumburg, Illinois
dEditorial Board Member, American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education, Arlington, Virginia
PhD, MS, MPH
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • Article
  • Info & Metrics
  • PDF
Loading

Abstract

As the pharmacy profession continues to evolve from product oriented to patient centered, pharmacy programs have been transitioning from a traditional pharmacy curriculum to a competency-based education pedagogy. Competency-based education has been developed to instill the required clinical competencies in graduates to better meet the contemporary role of pharmacists in accordance with the latest scientific knowledge and evidence-based practices in an ever-evolving health care landscape. While these ideas have helped shape the new Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education (ACPE) Standards and Center for the Advancement of Pharmacy Education (CAPE) Educational Outcome domains, recent publications have indicated that it is integral for these Standards to include public health emergency preparedness and response. Updated Standards and Educational Outcomes must be integrated longitudinally in pharmacy curricula to ensure that graduates will be practice-ready health care professionals. This commentary highlights the strategic use of workforce development of population health based on two perspectives: emergency preparedness and response and digital health.

Keywords
  • competency-based education
  • public health
  • accreditation
  • educational outcomes
  • pharmacy curricula

INTRODUCTION

As the pharmacy profession continues to evolve from product oriented to more patient centered, pharmacy programs have been undergoing a transition from a traditional pharmacy curriculum to competency-based education.1 Competency-based education has been developed to instill the required clinical competencies in graduates to better meet the contemporary role of pharmacists in accordance with the latest scientific knowledge and evidence-based practices in an ever-evolving health care landscape.1

Since 1992, the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy (AACP) Center for the Advancement of Pharmacy Education (CAPE) has pioneered the development of key Educational Outcomes. These Educational Outcomes have been periodically revised to guide curriculum planning, delivery, and assessment within colleges and schools of pharmacy.2 Of important note is that the CAPE Educational Outcomes are included as Standards 1 through 4 in the Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education (ACPE) 2016 Standards for accrediting Doctor of Pharmacy (PharmD) programs.3 However, to remain abreast with the evolving role of pharmacists in public health, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, the incorporation of new domains is essential.

This commentary highlights the strategic use of workforce development of population health based on two perspectives: emergency preparedness and response as well as digital health. The public health focus can help address services needed by patients. The evolving digital health landscape of disruption highlights the need to adapt pharmacy education to render digital literacy for all learners. It is also important to foster competency and build innovators at the forefront who can be proactive in emergency response planning and also embrace change through digital health innovations.

Domains related to emergency preparedness and response are critical, as many public health emergencies have emerged throughout the years. For example, in 2002-2003 there was a global outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS). In 2009-2010, the H1N1 influenza pandemic occurred. In 2013 to 2016, the Ebola virus outbreak happened in West Africa. Recently, the COVID-19 global pandemic occurred.4,5 All these public health emergencies highlight the critical and integral role that pharmacists can play in emergency preparedness and response to pandemics as well as other public health emergencies. Since pharmacists are the most accessible health care professionals, they can serve as frontline health care workers who provide primary, secondary, and tertiary public health services.

During public health emergencies, pharmacists in all sectors, including community, hospitals, long-term care facilities, and outpatient clinics, are involved in emergency response planning and execution where they play a vital role on interprofessional health care teams. In fact, pharmacists can improve public health through various services including developing strategies to continue access to medications and supplies, supporting health care needs and services, providing clinical care to affected patients, educating the community, and serving as reliable information sources.5

Pharmacists, through operation management, can optimize delivered services and ensure continuity of care for patients, health care teams, and communities during pandemics and emergencies. This can be accomplished by managing inventories, ensuring adequate medications, providing health care products and supplies, addressing medication shortages, and making therapeutic substitutions. In addition, pharmacists are involved in packaging, storing, dispensing, and administering medical countermeasures such as antivirals, antibiotics, and antitoxins.5,6 These services result in optimizing pharmaceutical care to improve patients’ quality of life and health outcomes.7

Pharmacists are also involved in point-of-care services, including screening, testing, and providing immunizations.4-7 Moreover, pharmacists provide innovative digital health services, including applying digital communications, telemedicine, clinical services, and education on evidence-based information that counters misinformation during public health emergencies and pandemics.5,7

An effective and strategic response to emergencies and pandemics depends on adequate education, training, and planning. Therefore, pharmacy curricula should incorporate aspects of global public health and emergency preparedness and response to yield pharmacists with the expertise, knowledge, and skills needed to enable them to combat pandemics.5,7 In addition, training is specifically important for pharmacists to prepare them for their new roles to effectively respond to emergencies. Specifically, pharmacists need to be trained in planning, supporting, and disseminating evidence-based information. Pharmacists must be equipped with interdisciplinary skills, mental health education, and knowledge on resources management as well as implementation of best practices.4,5

Hannings and colleagues’ research has shown that there is a gap in emergency response training of pharmacy students.8 Specifically, a call to action for emergency preparedness training was published by the Washington State University’s College of Pharmacy based on their experience working with the Metropolitan Medical Response System.9 Similarly, the University of Georgia’s College of Pharmacy described two emergency preparedness simulations that they conducted as part of their introductory pharmacy practice experiences.8 In addition, there are several guides for pharmacists on pandemic response issued by pharmacy organizations, including the Pharmacist's Guide to Pandemic Preparedness and the COVID-19 Vaccine Confident playbook.10,11

On the global level, in 2020 the International Pharmaceutical Federation (FIP) published a revised Global Competency Framework. This framework included emergency response as one of its competencies, which promotes the participation of pharmacists in multidisciplinary health care teams in response to public health emergencies.12 Additionally, a framework by Aruru and colleagues has been recently published to help expand pharmacists’ roles in emergency preparedness during the pandemic and beyond.5 The proposed framework includes five areas of competency: emergency preparedness and response; operations management; patient care and population health interventions; public health pharmacy education and continuing professional education; and evaluation, research, and dissemination for impact and outcomes.5

Given these recent publications, it is integral for emergency preparedness and response to be part of the new ACPE Standards and CAPE Educational Outcomes domains. Updated Standards and Educational Outcomes should be integrated in pharmacy curricula to ensure that the graduates will be equipped with the essential skills needed for frontline responders to effectively execute the response plans during public health disasters and emergencies.

The second area in which new Standards and Educational Outcomes should be considered is digital health. During the COVID-19 pandemic, digital health has influenced the ability to scale, test, coordinate, manage data, contact trace, and quarantine. The countries that melded these strategies with appropriate policy and health care services had lower per capita mortality rates and flattened incidence curves.13 In addition, wearable devices have been studied to help track recovery from and predict COVID-19 with self-reported symptoms, as demonstrated by the DETECT (Digital Engagement & Tracking for Early Control & Treatment) study.14

Antwerp and colleagues’ report on the future of health that was published by Deloitte included interviews with industry experts, representing independent pharmacies, payers, providers, large retail chains, technology developers, pharmacy associations, and academia.15 This report emphasized pharmacists’ ability to identify and facilitate digital health tools and diagnostics, interpret data for patients, and “prescribe digital therapeutics.”15 Approximately 40% of Americans wear a form of digital tracking, and 30% of patients wear a digital device daily.16 The role of pharmacists could potentially expand into engaging with digital health, such as enhancing medication adherence through “smart” medication packaging with real-time alerts to help aging patients be able to stay at home.15 Pharmacists could assist in population health analytics through developing tools and programs that improve population health as well as interpretation.15 Thus, pharmacists have the potential to play an instrumental role in remote health monitoring to ensure patients’ safety.16

There has been a strategic movement to provide students, faculty, and practitioners with opportunities to enhance their skills in digital health. In 2021, AACP held its inaugural Digital Health Institute for pharmacy educators. Recently, the FIP has issued an online “Train-the-Trainer” digital health curriculum series for its members. Notably, the FIP report highlights several innovative digital health didactic activities that incorporate patient experts to help inform digital health curricula and purposeful integration of digital health content throughout the whole program.17

Similarly, there are innovative global digital health implementations from various countries. In the FIP report, the University of Geneva/University of Lausanne’s Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences of Western Switzerland developed a course that incorporates patient experts as teachers to share their health care experience and use digital health resources with students. At La Trobe University in Australia, digital health is integrated vertically and longitudinally into the curriculum. Basic concepts of digital health and electronic medical records are introduced to first-year students. Students learn how to evaluate digital health apps and concepts, such as big data and artificial intelligence, and partake in case studies related to digital health through role play and objective structured clinical examination.17

Lastly, the FIP conducted a global survey on digital health in pharmacy education (N=1060 respondents, 91 countries, pharmacy schools, pharmacists, pharmacy students), which revealed that 57% of pharmacy programs do not offer digital health education. Competencies of digital health, such as patient-centered digital health (58%) and digital health tools (55%), were the most desired subjects in the curriculum. Most practitioners expressed an interest in learning more about mobile applications, electronic health records, telehealth, online pharmacy, and remote patient monitoring. Only 10% of pharmacy student respondents indicated they had learned digital health in the curriculum. The two most common challenges outlined by respondents were the lack of experts (50%) and resources (40%).17 As a result, FIP shared strategies such as supporting educators in training, sharing best practices from digital health initiatives at pharmacy schools, creating a Global Curriculum and Training Resources Toolkit, and promoting digital health literacy for students through the International Pharmaceutical Students Federation.18

The evolution of digital health necessitates that countries and stakeholders consider including digital health in the health professions curriculum. Some believe that the including content related to reviewing electronic medical records is sufficient to cover the digital health concepts in a curriculum. In addition, major large pharmacy chains and payers have not pushed for growing digital health applications at this time.15 Colleges of pharmacy can lay a foundation of digital health concepts and foster creativity by highlighting ongoing and new digital health applications. This would result in practitioners who have the ability to not only navigate but also innovate to improve population health and positively influence the perception and future of the profession. Rather than being reactive in updating the curriculum, pharmacy education can proactively welcome disruption and innovation that includes pharmacists as key players in digital health applications.

CONCLUSION

Based on the evidence provided above, pharmacists are poised to effectively use digital health to expand their roles in public health. The authors recommend the following ways to integrate public health emergency preparedness and response as well as digital health in pharmacy: include emergency preparedness and response and digital health competencies in the 2025 ACPE Standards; integrate emergency preparedness and response and digital health domains in the new CAPE Educational Outcomes; provide training for pharmacists to expand their services in digital and public health; educate patients on the skills, knowledge, and competencies of pharmacists to provide primary, secondary, and tertiary services; collaborate with other health care professionals on using digital health to monitor patients’ outcomes; provide telehealth to underserved patients in rural, urban, and suburban areas; and advocate on the state, regional, national, and global levels to recognize pharmacists as essential health care providers.

  • Received March 17, 2022.
  • Accepted March 23, 2022.
  • © 2023 American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy

REFERENCES

  1. 1.↵
    1. Katoue MG,
    2. Schwinghammer TL
    . Competency-based pharmacy education: an educational paradigm for the pharmacy profession to meet society’s healthcare needs. In: Pharmacy Education in the Twenty First Century and Beyond. Elsevier; 2018:169-188.
  2. 2.↵
    1. Medina MS,
    2. Plaza CM,
    3. Stowe CD,
    4. et al.
    Center for the Advancement of Pharmacy Education 2013 Educational Outcomes. Am J Pharm Educ. 2013;77(8):162. doi:10.5688/ajpe778162
    OpenUrlAbstract/FREE Full Text
  3. 3.↵
    Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education. Accreditation standards and key elements for the professional program in pharmacy leading to the doctor of pharmacy degree. https://www.acpe-accredit.org/pdf/Standards2016FINAL.pdf. Accessed February 18, 2023.
  4. 4.↵
    1. Zhao Y,
    2. Diggs K,
    3. Ha D,
    4. Fish H,
    5. Beckner J,
    6. Westrick SC
    . Participation in emergency preparedness and response: a national survey of pharmacists and pharmacist extenders. J Am Pharm Assoc (2003).2021;61(6):722-728.e1. doi:10.1016/j.japh.2021.05.011
    OpenUrl
  5. 5.↵
    1. Aruru M,
    2. Truong HA,
    3. Clark S
    . Pharmacy Emergency Preparedness and Response (PEPR): a proposed framework for expanding pharmacy professionals' roles and contributions to emergency preparedness and response during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond. Res Social Adm Pharm. 2021;17(1):1967-1977. doi:10.1016/j.sapharm.2020.04.002
    OpenUrlPubMed
  6. 6.↵
    1. Bacci JL,
    2. Odegard P,
    3. Arnold J,
    4. Stergachis A
    . Strengthening pandemic preparedness through pharmacy and public health collaborations: Findings from a facilitated discussion exercise. J Am Pharm Assoc. 2021;61(3):e99-e106. doi:10.1016/j.japh.2020.12.024
    OpenUrl
  7. 7.↵
    1. Paudyal V,
    2. Cadogan C,
    3. Fialová D,
    4. et al.
    Provision of clinical pharmacy services during the COVID-19 pandemic: Experiences of pharmacists from 16 European countries. Res Social Adm Pharm. 2021;17(8):1507-1517. doi:10.1016/j.sapharm.2020.11.017
    OpenUrl
  8. 8.↵
    1. Hannings AN,
    2. von Waldner T,
    3. McEwen DW,
    4. White CA
    . Assessment of emergency preparedness modules in introductory pharmacy practice experiences. Am J Pharm Educ. 2016;80(2):23. doi:10.5688/ajpe80223
    OpenUrlAbstract/FREE Full Text
  9. 9.↵
    1. Woodard LJ,
    2. Bray BS,
    3. Williams D,
    4. Terriff CM
    . Call to action: integrating student pharmacists, faculty, and pharmacy practitioners into emergency preparedness and response. J Am Pharm Assoc(2003).2010;50(2):158-164. doi:10.1331/JAPhA.2010.09187
    OpenUrlCrossRef
  10. 10.↵
    American Pharmacists Association, American Society of Health-System Pharmacists, and National Association of Chain Drug Stores Foundation. A pharmacist’s guide to pandemic preparedness. https://cdn.ymaws.com/www.aparx.org/resource/resmgr/imported/pandemic_preparedness_guide.pdf. Accessed February 18, 2023.
  11. 11.↵
    American Pharmacists Association Vaccine Confident. Conversation guide. https://vaccineconfident.pharmacist.com/conversation-guide. Accessed February 18, 2023.
  12. 12.↵
    International Pharmaceutical Federation. FIP global competency framework: supporting the development of foundation and early career pharmacists Version 2. https://www.fip.org/file/5127. Accessed February 18, 2023.
  13. 13.↵
    1. Whitelaw S,
    2. Mamas MA,
    3. Topol E,
    4. Van Spall HGC
    . Applications of digital technology in COVID-19 pandemic planning and response. Lancet Digit Health. 2020;2(8):e435-e440. doi:10.1016/S2589-7500(20)30142-4
    OpenUrl
  14. 14.↵
    MobiHealthNews. Pairing wearables data with self-reported symptoms could improve COVID-19 prediction. https://www.mobihealthnews.com/news/pairing-wearables-data-self-reported-symptoms-could-improve-covid-19-prediction. Accessed February 19, 2023.
  15. 15.↵
    Deloitte Insights. The pharmacist of the future: unlocking the profession’s potential to improve patient care. https://www2.deloitte.com/us/en/insights/industry/health-care/future-of-pharmacists.html. Accessed February 19, 2023.
  16. 16.↵
    1. Bonner L
    . In an era of digital health, where do pharmacists fit in? Pharmacy Today. 2021;27(5):34-35.
    OpenUrl
  17. 17.↵
    International Pharmaceutical Federation. FIP digital health in pharmacy education: developing a digitally enabled pharmaceutical workforce. https://www.fip.org/file/4958. Accessed February 19, 2023.
  18. 18.↵
    1. Mantel-Teeuwisse AK,
    2. Meilianti S,
    3. Khatri B,
    4. et al.
    Digital health in pharmacy education: Preparedness and responsiveness of pharmacy programmes. Educ Sci (Basel). 2021;11(6):296. doi:10.3390/educsci11060296
    OpenUrl
PreviousNext
Back to top

In this issue

American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education
Vol. 87, Issue 2
1 Mar 2023
  • Table of Contents
  • Index by author
Print
Download PDF
Email Article

Thank you for your interest in spreading the word on American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education.

NOTE: We only request your email address so that the person you are recommending the page to knows that you wanted them to see it, and that it is not junk mail. We do not capture any email address.

Enter multiple addresses on separate lines or separate them with commas.
Ensuring Doctor of Pharmacy Graduates Have the Essential Competencies for Innovative Practice
(Your Name) has sent you a message from American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education
(Your Name) thought you would like to see the American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education web site.
CAPTCHA
This question is for testing whether or not you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.
3 + 1 =
Solve this simple math problem and enter the result. E.g. for 1+3, enter 4.
Citation Tools
Ensuring Doctor of Pharmacy Graduates Have the Essential Competencies for Innovative Practice
Nisreen Mourad, See-Won Seo, Abby Kahaleh
American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education Mar 2023, 87 (2) ajpe9100; DOI: 10.5688/ajpe9100

Citation Manager Formats

  • BibTeX
  • Bookends
  • EasyBib
  • EndNote (tagged)
  • EndNote 8 (xml)
  • Medlars
  • Mendeley
  • Papers
  • RefWorks Tagged
  • Ref Manager
  • RIS
  • Zotero
Share
Ensuring Doctor of Pharmacy Graduates Have the Essential Competencies for Innovative Practice
Nisreen Mourad, See-Won Seo, Abby Kahaleh
American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education Mar 2023, 87 (2) ajpe9100; DOI: 10.5688/ajpe9100
Reddit logo Twitter logo Facebook logo Mendeley logo
  • Tweet Widget
  • Facebook Like
  • Google Plus One

Jump to section

  • Article
    • Abstract
    • INTRODUCTION
    • CONCLUSION
    • REFERENCES
  • Info & Metrics
  • PDF

Similar AJPE Articles

Cited By...

  • No citing articles found.
  • Google Scholar

More in this TOC Section

  • Improving Equity for Women in Pharmacy Academia
  • The Five Most Important Lessons I Learned Along the Path to Clinical Professor
  • Looking Abroad for Inspiration to Enhance the Scholarly Work We Do at Home
Show more COMMENTARY

Related Articles

  • No related articles found.
  • PubMed
  • Google Scholar

Keywords

  • competency-based education
  • public health
  • accreditation
  • educational outcomes
  • pharmacy curricula

Home

  • AACP
  • AJPE

Articles

  • Current Issue
  • Early Release
  • Archive

Instructions

  • Author Instructions
  • Submission Process
  • Submit a Manuscript
  • Reviewer Instructions

About

  • AJPE
  • Editorial Team
  • Editorial Board
  • History
  • Contact

© 2023 American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education

Powered by HighWire