Project Teams
The Taskforce Action Plan identified four core domains for action in pharmacy education: academic and institutional capacity, vision and competency, quality assurance, pharmacy support workforce and leadership.
Academic and Institutional Capacity
Academic institutions and staff are, by definition, the basis of pharmacy education. Many academic institutions lack the resources and capacity to train sufficient numbers of pharmacists and other pharmacy support staff. Others face poor physical institutional infrastructure where basic facilities may be insufficient or nonexistent. In recent years, the demand for an academic faculty and facilities that can meet the needs of a growing student intake has stretched limited resources even further.
The Academic and Institutional Capacity project team aims to better understand these challenges and develop tools, which can be used by institutions to overcome them.
The objectives of the Academic and Institutional Capacity team are to:
1. Gather and interpret data on academic workforce and institution infrastructure
2. Review strategies for academic workforce and institution capacity development at national level
3. Publish report and provide guidance for academic workforce and institution capacity building
The Project Lead for the Academic Workforce and Institutional Infrastructure team is Claire Anderson | claire.anderson@nottingham.ac.uk
Vision and Competency
Implementing one educational model or system for pharmacy education is neither practical nor desirable. Healthcare demands differ greatly within and between regions, and are too incredibly complex to justify such an approach.
The Vision and Competency project team is instead working to develop an educational framework that first seeks to assess and understand local health needs, and then adapts the educational system based on those needs. No one particular competency model will meet the needs of all parties, but identifying the core tenets that support all pharmaceutical services from research to public health allows for a framework with the flexibility for adaptation. The project team will examine existing competency frameworks and experiences before undergoing a consultative and evidence-based process to form an accurate and applicable global framework for pharmacy education.
Amid changes in the roles of pharmacists and growing health challenges, an essential need exists to have a clear and shared vision for pharmacy education, a process to build collective action and momentum to develop quality pharmacy education. The Vision and Competency team is also working to integrate findings and tools from the Taskforce to form an “educational roadmap” on mechanisms by which education can be developed.
The objectives of the Vision and Competency project team are to:
1. Gather data through country studies on education infrastructure, delivery, teaching and assessment
strategies
2. Gather and review competency frameworks for pharmaceutical services
3. Develop a “roadmap” to guide efforts in and mechanisms for education development
4. Explore cultural influences on competency
5. Develop a broad pharmaceutical services competency framework
6. Establish a global platform that will enable communication and sharing of resources and practices
The Project Lead for the Vision and Competency team is Ian Bates | ian.bates@pharmacy.ac.uk
Quality Assurance
As the practice of pharmacy has become more complex and more accessible and as medical therapies have been used in more and diverse patients, patient safety and accountability for outcomes of therapy have become a greater focus of attention. Consumers and governments are demanding higher standards and seeking assurances of quality. Likewise, greater attention is being paid to the quantity and quality of pharmacist and pharmaceutical human resources, including the systems in place to assure the quality of education and training and the ongoing competence of practitioners.
Consequently, many countries are introducing, expanding or undertaking major reform of pharmacy education. Such developments must be accompanied by robust systems to assure the quality of the educational structures, processes and outcomes; the latter primarily being graduates who are competent and capable of performing safely and effectively in their practice setting and contributing to the delivery of healthcare.
To promote and facilitate international dialogue and collaboration in the area of quality assurance of pharmacy education, the International Forum for Quality Assurance of Pharmacy Education was established in 2001. It operates under the auspices of the Academic Section of the International Pharmaceutical Federation (FIP), primarily as an informal network of individuals interested in the quality assurance and quality advancement of pharmacy education.
The Forum has identified that countries seeking to establish or improve their quality system would benefit from an internationally-developed and adopted QA framework. The Quality Assurance project team of the Pharmacy Education Taskforce has been convened to continue the development of this “global framework”. The framework incorporates core principles and elements considered essential for an effective approach to quality assurance.
The objectives of the Quality Assurance project team are to:
1. Validate and further develop the Global Framework for Quality Assurance of Pharmacy Education.
2. Examine accreditation and quality assurance models and systems in country case studies
3. Provide guidance for quality assurance system development
In 2009, the Global Framework underwent a validation exercise and an updated version is under development, with an expected finalisation and release in September 2010.
The Project Lead for the Quality Assurance team is Mike Rouse | mrouse@acpe-accredit.org
Pharmacy Support Workforce
The limited human health resources are widely recognised by the World Health Organisation (WHO), and the International Pharmacy Federation (FIP) as an impediment to achieving the health-related Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
Non pharmacist cadres form part of the international pharmacy workforce responsible for various aspects of pharmacy supply and services. The use of and role of various mid level pharmacy cadres varies significantly between countries and within regions. The reality for many countries is that the numbers of pharmacists will remain low for some time and mid level cadres will continue to form a large part of pharmacy workforce. A point reinforced by the recent FIP workforce report.
At a number of international consultations over the last few years members of FIP have raised the need for education support for Mid Level pharmacy cadres, especially in environments with low pharmacist numbers. The current focus of PET in the area of Competency, Quality Assurance and Capacity Building has been on improving the quality and number of pharmacists with developing regions. This focus will still exist while at the same time we have reached a point where the PET can expand its influence through links with other organizations within pharmacy education to look more broadly at Pharmacy Support Workforce.
It is with this background that we have launched this new domain.
The objectives of the Pharmacy Support Workforce project team are to:
1. Apply a needs based approach to the education of non pharmacist workforce cadres.
2. Country specific situations that have a global application will be sort with a view to applying existing and developing PET tools to this area of human resource development in health.
The Project Lead for the Pharmacy Support Workforce team is Andrew Brown | andrew.brown@canberra.edu.au
Leadership | New Domain
In development.
The Project Lead for the Leaderdhip team is Tina Brock | brockt@pharmacy.ucsf.edu
