Abstract
Entrustable professional activities (EPAs) allow tasks to be delegated to trainees. A new model of pharmacy placements was developed that used EPAs to appropriately supervise students providing patient counselling for inhalers, anticoagulation and simple analgesia at a tertiary care hospital. Students were provided with clinical communication training (e.g. how to do the counselling) as well as mandatory occupational training (e.g. fire safety). Data was collected (by students and placement facilitators) relating to the number of consultations (n = 1361) and patients who received counselling (n = 308) carried out by students (n = 71) over a 20 week period. Students documented these consultations, recording information such as the patient identification details, subjective and objective history, their assessment of the patients' need, as well as any action taken and any further planned action that was required. These notes were analysed using a Quality and Utility Assessment Framework by three clinical pharmacists. Data was analysed using simple descriptive statistical analysis on Microsoft Excel. Documentation was deemed High Quality (41%), Medium Quality (35%) and Low Quality (24%). The results indicate that pharmacy students can use entrustable professional activities to contribute to clinical services, completing high-quality patient consultations that have utility in clinical practice. Further work is needed to evaluate impact on clinical service delivery and establish the educational utility of using EPAs to support the pharmacy workforce to develop their consultation skills.
Highlights
During initial education and training in the United Kingdom, pharmacy students gain some knowledge about medication and some communication skills but require time and access to clinical environments to practice these skills.[1]
entrustable professional activities (EPAs) consist of specific, designated tasks that form a part of clinical practice, for example, drug history taking or medication counselling.[4,5,6]
The results indicate that pharmacy students can use entrustable professional activities with appropriate supervision to contribute to clinical services, completing high-quality patient consultations that have utility in clinical practice
Summary
During initial education and training in the United Kingdom, pharmacy students gain some knowledge about medication and some communication skills but require time and access to clinical environments to practice these skills.[1]. EPAs consist of specific, designated tasks that form a part of clinical practice, for example, drug history taking or medication counselling.[4,5,6] drug history taking and medication counselling are key parts of practice, the routine nature of obtaining information through questioning or giving standard sets of information may be systematised to enable trainees to complete these tasks
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