Effectiveness of Educational Technology to Improve Patient Care in Pharmacy Curricula

Abstract

A review of the literature on the effectiveness of educational technologies to teach patient care skills to pharmacy students was conducted. Nineteen articles met inclusion criteria for the review. Seven of the articles included computer-aided instruction, 4 utilized human-patient simulation, 1 used both computeraided instruction and human-patient simulation, and 7 utilized virtual patients. Educational technology was employed with more than 2700 students at 12 colleges and schools of pharmacy in courses including pharmacotherapeutics, skills and patient care laboratories, drug diversion, and advanced pharmacy practice experience (APPE) orientation. Students who learned by means of human-patient simulation and virtual patients reported enjoying the learning activity, whereas the results with computer-aided instruction were mixed. Moreover, the effect on learning was significant in the humanpatient simulation and virtual patient studies, while conflicting data emerged on the effectiveness of computer-aided instruction.

Virtual Pediatric Patient Activities With Randomized Scenarios as an Instructional Tool for Pharmacy Students

“…7 We are the first to use the Qualtrics survey software as a framework for VPAs. 5 The use of Qualtrics, with branched-outcome logic and data collection capabilities, allowed for more complex scenarios and facilitated active student learning in higher levels of the Bloom's taxonomy cognitive learning domain. 4 However, the user interface did not aesthetically mimic an electronic health record and in the future we would like to make the scenarios more graphically appealing, real-life, and easier to use.…”

“…A recent review of technology in pharmacy education found that while computer-aided instruction revealed conflicting impact on learning, mannequin-based patients and virtual patient simulations had significant effects on learning. 5 Analyses of virtual patient use in pharmacy schools have usually compared before and after knowledge assessments while comparisons to paper-based scenarios or other teaching methods have also not been done or did not show significant differences. [9][10][11][12] The majority of virtual patient publications in the pharmacy and other healthcare fields have involved adult patient scenarios, [5][6][7] but pediatric patients have unique medication-related needs that would impact the creation and implementation of virtual patients for pharmacy education.…”

“…[13][14][15] Yet, most published studies in medical education and all in pharmacy education have not analyzed the impact of repeated attempts of unique virtual patient scenarios on student learning. 5,7 Additionally, all virtual patient scenarios in pharmacy education utilizing branched-outcome decision-making were based on adult patients. 5 Thus, assessment of repeated attempts of pediatric virtual patients with branched-outcome decision-making and multiple scenarios is needed in pharmacy education.…”

“…5,7 Additionally, all virtual patient scenarios in pharmacy education utilizing branched-outcome decision-making were based on adult patients. 5 Thus, assessment of repeated attempts of pediatric virtual patients with branched-outcome decision-making and multiple scenarios is needed in pharmacy education. We theorized that having students repeatedly complete randomly presented similar, but unique, virtual patient scenarios could prevent rote memorization of a single scenario outcome and help students independently learn how to apply concepts to new complex patient scenarios.…”

“…Instructional technologies have brought about new ways to simulate patient scenarios and create active learning environments in the classroom, usually referred to as virtual patients. 5 Virtual patients used in healthcare education can be classified based on the technology utilized and desired competency outcome. For example, dynamic simulations and mixed realities can be used to develop procedural and basic skills while conversational characters or standardized patients are used to develop communication skills.…”