Pharmacists, with expertise in optimizing drug therapy outcomes, are valuable components of the healthcare team and are becoming increasingly involved in public health efforts. Pharmacists and pharmacy technicians in diverse community pharmacy settings can implement a variety of asthma interventions when they are brief, supported by appropriate tools, and integrated into the workflow. The Asthma Friendly Pharmacy (AFP) model addresses the challenges of providing patient-focused care in a community pharmacy setting by offering education to pharmacists and pharmacy technicians on asthma-related pharmaceutical care services, such as identifying or resolving medication-related problems; educating patients about asthma and medication-related concepts; improving communication and strengthening relationships between pharmacists, patients, and other healthcare providers; and establishing higher expectations for the pharmacist's role in patient care and public health efforts. This article describes the feasibility of the model in an urban community pharmacy setting and documents the interventions and communication activities promoted through the AFP model.

Students' use of health literacy communication tools during encounters with independent-living senior residents can result in greater patient understanding and empowerment, which may in turn help improve medication adherence.

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Objective. To develop a comprehensive instrument specific to student pharmacist-patient communication skills, and to determine face, content, construct, concurrent, and predictive validity and reliability of the instrument. Methods. A multi-step approach was used to create and validate an instrument, including the use of external experts for face and content validity, students for construct validity, comparisons to other rubrics for concurrent validity, comparisons to other coursework for predictive validity, and extensive reliability and inter-rater reliability testing with trained faculty assessors. Results. Patient-centered Communication Tools (PaCT) achieved face and content validity and performed well with multiple correlation tests with significant findings for reliability testing and when compared to an alternate rubric. Conclusion. PaCT is a useful instrument for assessing student pharmacist communication skills with patients.Keywords: communication tools; provider-patient relationship; patient-centered; pharmacist-patient instrument INTRODUCTIONEffective communication requires active participation by patients and health care providers to ensure that messages are received and interpreted accurately by all parties. This is especially true for pharmacists as evidenced by a World Health Organization (WHO) report indicating that one of the seven roles of the pharmacist is "communicator."1 The 2016 Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education (ACPE) guidelines for Doctor of Pharmacy degree programs explicitly define expectations for communication in the standards.2 Standard 3 (Approach to Practice and Care), Key Element 3.6 outlines that "graduates must be able to effectively communicate verbally and nonverbally when interacting with individuals, groups, and organizations." Additionally, professional communication is described as a required element of the didactic curriculum in Appendix 1 of the Standards. 2 The Center for the Advancement of Pharmacy Education (CAPE) is recognized by schools and colleges of pharmacy, the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy (AACP), and ACPE as the foundational driver for curricular design, mapping, and setting program expectations. Updated outcomes were released by CAPE in 2013 that specifically mention communication in Domain 3 (3.6 Communicator) and indirectly within the description of collaboration (3.4 Collaborator). 3Studies have shown that pharmacist communication skills can be improved with education and training.4,5 A recent literature review of communications training and assessment in pharmacy education by Wallman and colleagues revealed that the majority of education and training occurs with patient-focused communication activities, such as learning interviewing techniques, patient counseling or public health promotion.6 Several published articles describe objective assessment of student pharmacist oral communication with a patient, such as structured exam, pre/post evaluations, and expert/professor assessment of skills. Other articles describe subjective a...

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