AACP Portfolio of Products and Services Supporting Experiential Education

We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them -Einstein INTRODUCTION The attention to experiential education within the academic pharmacy and professional practice communities has increased dramatically in recent years. Some of the added attention has been in response to changes in accreditation requirements as promulgated by the Accreditation Council on Pharmacy Education (ACPE) in the Accreditation Standards and Guidelines for the Professional Program in Pharmacy Leading to the Doctor of Pharmacy Degree. (1) There has also been an increased demand for quality experiential education in all practice settings due to the emergence of new academic pharmacy programs, as well as the expansion of existing programs. Recognizing that substantive dialogue was needed the 2005 Summit to Advance Experiential Education, was convened by the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy (AACP) with the purpose of bringing together stakeholders from the practice, regulatory, and education communities to identify strategies and develop resources to increase the capacity and enhance the quality, efficiency, and effectiveness of experiential education in pharmacy. (2) Outputs from the 2005 Summit have included an online annotated library of resources (3) and the Advanced Practice Experience Site Profiling System. (4) The profiling system is a toolkit for experiential directors to identify, document, and profile models of exemplary experiential education practice site partnerships that they use in their professional programs. This profiling system has been further used to nominate and select the 2007 and 2008 recipients of the AACP Crystal APPLE (Academic Practice Partnerships for Learning Excellence) Award, which is presented each year to 8 national academic-practice partnerships in experiential education. EXPANDING RESOURCES TO SUPPORT EXPERIENTIAL EDUCATION Recognizing the continual need for activities to enhance experiential education on a national platform, in 2007 the AACP Board of Directors endorsed a broad portfolio of products and services to support the various stakeholders involved in experiential education. The following are brief summaries of some of the products: (1) Experiential Education Administrator's Workshop Goal: to provide essential information and resources to new administrative support personnel for experiential education programs at colleges and schools of pharmacy in a consistent manner and create a support network for such individuals though an ongoing effort. (2) National Preceptor Profile Goal: to describe on a national level the characteristics, demographics, and development needs of pharmacy preceptors engaged in experiential education. (3) Universal Competency Assessment of Pharmacy Practice Experiences (CAPPE) Goal: to employ an evidenced-based approach to student performance assessment during experiential education that provides useful information about student performance though the use of a psychometrically sound clinical performance assessment tool that is available in an electronic format nationally, supporting the needs of volunteer preceptors and full-time faculty members. (4) National Pharmacy Preceptor Development Program Goal: to create a preceptor development program by assisting individuals in their self-improvement/continuing professional development (CPD) in becoming quality clinical instructors and by pooling resources (ie, human, intellectual, technological, financial) within the academy in a cooperative manner. (5) Universal Documentation System Goal: to employ a universal approach for documenting and characterizing the contributions that pharmacy students provide in the care of patients in a multitude of practice settings, while imparting the skills, attitudes, and behaviors pharmacy students need to deliver patient-centered care. …