Development and Evaluation of a Required Patient Safety Course

Abstract

Objectives. To develop, implement, and assess a required patient safety course for second-year doctor of pharmacy students. Design. A patient safety course was developed that included didactic lectures, case studies, in-class activities, and reading assignments. Written examinations and essays were used to evaluate student learning. In addition, a modified minute paper and a pre-and post-intervention student self-assessment survey were used to assess course outcomes. Assessment. Results examining the utility of the course teaching format and the relevance of the material in meeting the course outcomes are presented and discussed. The self-assessment course survey indicated major improvements in the students' knowledge and skills, readiness for knowledge application, and commitment to improve patient safety. Conclusion. The course provided pharmacy students with an increased level of understanding of the principles and concepts of patient safety.

An Interprofessional Pediatric Prescribing Workshop

“…The prescribing workshops significantly increased overall confidence in prescribing among students in both the interprofessional and noninterprofessional learning groups (p,0.001; Table 2). The changes in scores from pre-to post-workshop for individual skill-related questions (questions [10][11][12][13][14] and overall change in scores are shown in Table 2.…”

“…11 The University of Wisconsin designed a pharmacistpractitioner-led workshop to increase medical students' knowledge of and skills in prescription writing; to increase their use of a formulary; and to reduce prescribing errors. 12 This workshop for medical students seemed a useful basis for the development of an interprofessional workshop for undergraduate medical and pharmacy students on prescribing in pediatrics.…”

Patient Safety Instruction in US Health Professions Education

“…27 As in medicine, improvement was seen as a result of a safety initiative. Two of the pharmacy education studies used self-assessment survey instruments and reported improvements in knowledge, 20,21 confidence, 20,21 attitudes, 20 and/or skills. 20 Two of 3 of the interprofessional safety initiatives reported improvements in attitudes 14 or skills 23 after completion of safety instruction through the use of a self-assessment instrument.…”

“…The most frequently used instructional approaches in the studies were lectures, [14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24] case-based exercises, 16,20,[22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29] active-learning exercises, 14,[16][17][18][19][24][25]28,[30][31] and discussion. [14][15]17,21,[26][27]31,32 Simulation exercises were common, including the use of standardized patients 29,[31][32][33] and role-plays.…”

Pharmacy Student Knowledge and Communication of Medication Errors

“…3 The Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) Strategic Plan also supports pharmacists' understanding of the science of safety to ensure their active participation in the development, implementation, and/or evaluation of new initiatives to improve the consumer's safe use of medical products. 4 Limited research has been conducted on what pharmacists and pharmacy students have learned about medication safety, [5][6][7][8][9] indicating considerable variation on the nature and depth of medication safety topics taught. Pharmacy programs providing medication safety instruction typically offer topics such as the nomenclature, frequency, cost, and morbidity/mortality associated with medication errors.…”