Abstract
Around the world, changes in scope of practice regulations for pharmacists have been used as a tool to advance practice and promote change. Regulatory change does not automatically trigger practice change; the extent and speed of uptake of new roles and responsibilities has been slower than anticipated. A recent study identified 9 pre-requisites to practice change (the 9Ps of Practice Change). The objective of this study was to describe how educationalists could best apply these 9Ps to the design and delivery of continuing professional development for pharmacists. Twenty community pharmacists participated in semi-structured interviews designed to elicit their learning needs for scope of practice change. Seven supportive educational techniques were identified as being most helpful to promote practice change: (i) a coaching/mentoring approach; (ii) practice-based experiential learning; (iii) a longitudinal approach to instructional design; (iv) active demonstration of how to implement practice change; v) increased focus on soft-skills development; (vi) opportunities for practice/rehearsal of new skills; and (vii) use of a 360-degree feedback model. Further work is required to determine how these techniques can be best applied and implemented to support practice change in pharmacy.
Highlights
The profession of pharmacy continues to evolve in order to meet the changing needs of patients [1].Internationally, scope of practice change has been an important and widely used regulatory tool to facilitate practice evolution [1,2]
While it is clear that a permissive regulatory framework and legal guidance is essential for practice change, it is clear that changing regulations alone will not necessarily incentivize, motivate, or accelerate pharmacists’ adoption of new practice roles [3,5,6,7]
Inductive coding and analysis highlighted 7 dominant themes, common across all or most participants, with respect to continuing professional development needs for pharmacists related to scope of practice change: (i) A mentoring/coaching style instead of a traditional lecturing/didactic style
Summary
The profession of pharmacy continues to evolve in order to meet the changing needs of patients [1].Internationally, scope of practice change has been an important and widely used regulatory tool to facilitate practice evolution [1,2]. Has often been seen as the most important step and requirement to unleash pharmacists’ potential to provide patient care [3,4]. While it is clear that a permissive regulatory framework and legal guidance is essential for practice change, it is clear that changing regulations alone will not necessarily incentivize, motivate, or accelerate pharmacists’ adoption of new practice roles [3,5,6,7]. This research was undertaken in response to concerns expressed by the regulator, employers, and leaders in professional associations that the pace of practice change and the uptake of new scopes of practice and direct patient care roles by pharmacists was frustratingly slow [3]. A common concern centered on the notion that pharmacists had “asked” for enabling regulation to undertake advanced practice roles, yet once such regulation was promulgated, pharmacists appeared to find other reasons (excuses) for not fully embracing new Pharmacy 2019, 7, 140; doi:10.3390/pharmacy7040140 www.mdpi.com/journal/pharmacy
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary 
Published Version (
Free)
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call