David P. Zgarrick

Perceptions and use of iPad technology by pharmacy practice faculty members.

Objectives. To explore the potential of tablet technology to address the specific workload challenges of pharmacy practice faculty members and to evaluate tablet usage after a department-wide iPad initiative. Methods. After conducting a needs assessment to determine pharmacy faculty attitudes towards tablet technology and to identify potential usage scenarios, all faculty members in a department of pharmacy practice received an iPad. After iPad distribution, training sessions and virtual tutorials were provided. An anonymous survey was administered to evaluate the pilot. Results. The needs assessment survey revealed positive attitudes towards iPad technology, identified use scenarios, and led to a department-wide iPad pilot program. Most faculty members used iPads for connectivity with students (86%), paper/project annotation (68%), assessment (57%), and demonstration of tools used in practice (36%). For teaching, 61% of faculty members used iPads in seminars/laboratories, 57% used iPads in the experiential setting, and 43% used iPads in the classroom. Use of iPads for patient-care activities varied and depended on site support for mobile technology. The 23 faculty members with external practice sites used iPads to a greater extent and had more positive attitudes towards this technology compared with campus-based faculty members. Conclusion. Integration of tablet technology into the pharmacy education setting resulted in faculty-reported increased productivity and decreased paper waste. It also allowed faculty members to experiment with new teaching strategies in the classroom and experiential setting. Administrators at institutions exploring the use of tablet technology should allocate resources based on faculty needs and usage patterns.

Report of the 2010-2011 Professional Affairs Committee: Effective partnerships to implement pharmacists' services in team-based, patient-centered healthcare.

According to the Bylaws of the AACP, the Professional Affairs Committee is to study: issues associated with the professional practice as they relate to pharmaceutical education, and to establish and improve working relationships with all other organizations in the field of health affairs. The Committee is also encouraged to address related agenda items relevant to its Bylaws charge and to identify issues for consideration by subsequent committees, task forces, commission, or other groups. COMMITTEE CHARGE President Rodney A. Carter charged the 2010-2011 American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy (AACP) Professional Affairs Committee with: Examining how AACP and its members can most effectively partner with a variety of key stakeholders to accelerate the implementation of pharmacist services (e.g., MTM, primary care) as the standard for team-based, patient-centered care. Members of the 2010-2011 Professional Affairs Committee include faculty from various colleges and schools of pharmacy as well as pharmacy practice association representatives from the American Pharmacists Association (APhA), the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists (ASHP), the National Association of Chain Drug Stores (NACDS), and the National Community Pharmacists Association (NCPA). In order to fulfill the Committee charge, the Committee members met for a day and a half in Arlington, Virginia in October 2010 to discuss the committee charge and develop a plan of action to address the charge. Following this meeting, the Committee communicated via a series of conference calls as well as personal exchanges via telephone and email. The result is the following report which is positioned to discuss various models of care, challenges and opportunities pertaining to the charge, successful practices of AACP members and multiple pharmacy practice organizations, and recommendations to AACP in response to the Committee charge. BACKGROUND The pharmacy profession has been intransition from a product-based to a patient-centered care model since the introduction of the pharmaceutical care philosophy in the 1990s. (1) This transition has been accomplished to varying degrees in different pharmacy practice settings and has been influenced by a variety of factors including the transition to the clinically-focused Doctor of Pharmacy (Pharm.D.) degree as the entry level degree and the increasing recognition that medication-related problems pose a significant threat to public health. (2) The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) recognized the importance of medication therapy management (MTM) services by requiring all Medicare Part D plans to provide MTM as part of their programs. Recent healthcare reform (HCR) legislation includes provisions for MTM and pharmacist-provided services as part of integrated team-based care models designed to improve the quality of healthcare delivered in the United States. (4) Pharmacists are well-positioned to serve as the medication therapy expert on the healthcare team. (5) Currently, MTM services are not offered to all patients in all settings. This creates a situation of inequality and fragmentation of pharmacy services. It is imperative that the profession and the Academy accelerate the implementation of patient-centered, team-based care as the standard of pharmacy practice with the availability of MTM services to all patients. This vision has been clearly articulated in the Joint Commission of Pharmacy Practitioners (JCPP) vision for pharmacy practice. (6) Identification of the factors that are impeding the realization of this vision and the development of strategies to accelerate its adoption as the standard of pharmacy practice in 2015 are the focus of this report. With the current HCR legislation, increasing the momentum for implementation of medication management services and chronic disease management services provided by pharmacists is a critical issue for pharmacy practice and education. …

Faculty career transitions: guidance for what's next.

Live your questions now, and perhaps even without knowing it, you will live along some distant day into your answers.--Rainer Maria Rilke One of the many roles of any college faculty member is advising students. We use our experience as former students and as current educators, researchers, and clinicians to help students make choices as they navigate through their education and training. Advising sessions take on added urgency for many students as they approach the end of their programs and begin to think about their careers. As advisors, we make efforts to get to know our students, learning their strengths, interests, and values. We offer students our knowledge and personal experiences to help them come to decisions that will get their careers off to a good start. In addition to having access to advising, students in pharmacy programs have a variety of career development resources, including student service and career counselors, job placement services, the American Pharmacists Association Pathway Evaluation Program for Pharmacy Professionals, (1) and a variety of postgraduate and postdoctoral training programs (ie, residencies, fellowships, graduate programs, postdoctoral traineeships). As educators, we commonly put ourselves in the shoes of our students and advisees to develop ways of better connecting with them. Understanding their needs helps us develop resources to help them learn, grow, and make good decisions. But as educators, we are often faced with the same decisions that our advisees must make, particularly when it comes to our own professional and career development. While we are familiar with the steps needed to develop as educators and researchers, particularly those involving our professional development in academia (promotion, tenure), we also know that there is much more to be navigated than merely progressing up the academic ranks. As faculty members, we have a variety of choices to make regarding the direction we want our career to take, such as taking an administrative position; developing a new research program or clinical site; moving to another department, school, or university; or even leaving academia entirely. But unlike students who have a variety of resources to help them develop their careers, we often find ourselves with limited options when gathering information needed to make important decisions regarding our academic careers. At the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy Council of Faculties (COF) Business Meeting held during the 2012 Interim Meeting, a lively discussion was held regarding transitions made by faculty members over the course of their careers. (2) These discussions led to the 2012-2013 COF Faculty Affairs Committee being charged to identify the types of transitions that faculty members make over the course of their careers and the resources available to help them make informed decisions at career transition points, and to recommend steps that could be taken to help faculty members manage career transition points. …