Pharmacists who participated in CPD reported more often that their perceptions of various aspects of their pharmacy practice improved as a result of their education activities compared with pharmacists who participated in traditional CPE.

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Objective. To develop and implement a continuing pharmacy education (CPE) program at Kaiser Permanente Colorado (KPCO) Design. To address the continuing education needs of its diverse pharmacy staff, an internal continuing pharmacy education (CPE) program was developed. The pharmacy department became an accredited provider by the Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education (ACPE). Live, interactive, and evidence-based CPE programs, presented by highly qualified internal staff members, utilized videoconferencing and a Web-based learning management system. Cross-accreditation of medical and pharmacy educational programs was offered to KPCO staff members. Assessment. Annual needs assessments were conducted to ensure the provision of relevant educational topics and to assess learning needs. To demonstrate outcomes of the CPE programs, 2 methods were utilized: objective effectiveness assessment and knowledge acquisition assessment. This program met the objectives for CPE activities a large majority of the time (usually over 90%), demonstrated statistically significant (p , 0.05) improvement in knowledge from before to after the CPE activity in 11 of 13 questions asked, and minimized the cost to acquire CPE credit for both the pharmacy department and its staff members. Conclusion. The KPCO continuing pharmacy education program has developed a high quality and cost-favorable system that has resulted in significant improvements in attendee knowledge.

Objective. To assess the long-term sustainability of continuing professional development (CPD) training in pharmacy practice and learning behaviors.Methods. This was a 3-year posttrial survey of pharmacists who had participated in an unblinded randomized controlled trial of CPD. The online survey assessed participants' perceptions of pharmacy practice, learning behaviors, and sustainability of CPD. Differences between groups on the posttrial survey responses and changes from the trial's follow-up survey to the posttrial survey responses within the intervention group were compared. Results. Of the 91 pharmacists who completed the original trial, 72 (79%) participated in the sustainability survey. Compared to control participants, a higher percentage of intervention participants reported in the sustainability survey that they had utilized the CPD concept (45.7% vs 8.1%) and identified personal learning objectives (68.6% vs 43.2%) during the previous year. Compared to their follow-up survey responses, lower percentages of intervention participants reported identifying personal learning objectives (94.3% vs 68.6%), documenting their learning plan (82.9% vs 22.9%) and participating in learning by doing (42.9% vs 14.3%) in the sustainability survey. In the intervention group, many of the improvements to pharmacy practice items were sustained over the 3-year period but were not significantly different from the control group. Conclusion. Sustainability of a CPD intervention over a 3-year varied. While CPD-trained pharmacists reported utilizing CPD concepts at a higher rate than control pharmacists, their CPD learning behaviors diminished over time.