RESUMEN
Introductory Pharmacy Practice Experiences (IPPEs) provide early experiential education in the Doctor of Pharmacy (Pharm.D.) curriculum in the United States (US). In response to Oregon's 'Stay Home, Save Lives' executive order issued during the COVID-19 pandemic, an online health-system IPPE course was developed to simulate the practice experiences that have historically been conducted in person. This case study describes experience from the online health-system IPPE course offered for incoming second-year student pharmacists enrolled in a three-year Pharm.D. programme at Pacific University in Oregon, US. The goals of the course were: 1) to expose students to pharmacy practice common in health-system settings in the US;and 2) for students to earn 50 experiential clock hours through simulation activities. Copyright © 2020, International Pharmaceutical Federation. All rights reserved.
RESUMEN
Introduction: Less than 20% of Medicare beneficiaries receive an Annual Wellness Visit (AWV) each year. Employing non-physician professionals to perform AWVs is one strategy to overcome the underutilization. Previous studies suggested polypharmacy as a way to operationalize pharmacy-led AWVs. However, the effectiveness of using a simple electronic medical record (EMR) outreach to recruit patients, with a goal of addressing medication-related problems (MRPs) and impacting quality measures, has not been fully investigated yet. Research Question or Hypothesis: Do numbers of polypharmacybased outreach correlate with numbers of pharmacist-led AWV appointments within a healthcare system? Study Design: Prospective cross-sectional study using EMR records Methods: Outreach was conducted from December 2021 to February 2022 by either pharmacists or non-pharmacist team members via EMR messaging in six primary care clinics. Targeted patients were: AWVeligible Medicare beneficiaries with ≥7 medications. Patients who were ≥90 years of age, had their last primary-care visit >1 year, or 'did not have an active EMR portal were excluded. The number of scheduled AWV visits were tracked as the primary outcome, and types of interventions made were collected for the secondary objective. Spearman correlation between the number of the outreach and AWV appointments was evaluated, using JMP Pro v.16, with significance level at 0.05. Results: The number of outreaches correlated to the number of AWVs scheduled (Spearman's rho=0.83, p=0.04) and MRPs identified (Spearman's rho=0.89, p=0.02). A total of 108 AWVs were conducted with 21 medications and 114 labs ordered, 15 referrals and 38 imaging/procedure placed, 16 vaccines given, 27 care gaps addressed, and 190 MRPs identified. Reported barriers to scheduling AWVs included appointment availability and COVID-related changes in workflow. Conclusion:The number of polypharmacy-based outreaches conducted was correlated with the number of pharmacist-led AWV appointments and MRPs identified during the visits. Although pharmacists have demonstrated proficiency at conducting AWVs, additional challenges were identified to operationalize pharmacyled AWVs.