Report of the 2007-2008 Professional Affairs Committee

According to the Bylaws of the AACP, the Professional Affairs Committee is to study:

issues associated with professional practice as they relate to pharmaceutical education, and to establish and improve working relationships with all other organizations in the field of health affairs. The Committee is also encouraged to address related agenda items relevant to its Bylaws charge and to identify issues for consideration by subsequent committees, task forces, commissions, or other groups.

COMMITTEE CHARGE

The 2007-08 charge to the standing committees took a different approach, described by President Cynthia Raehl as “an effort of reflective consideration and action plan development”. Specifically, the Professional Affairs Committee was charged to critically review the work of past Professional Affairs Committees as reflected in reports published in this decade (2000 through 2007), study the progress made on implementing recommendations put forward, and recommend concrete action steps for implementation of those unfulfilled recommendations that are consistent with the Association's highest priorities. The AACP Board identified those priorities in 2008 to be 1) progress in faculty recruitment and retention, 2) assessment program maturation and 3) quality assurance in experiential education.

COMMITTEE WORK PLAN and METHODS

The Committee worked in phases. Phase 1 comprised a comprehensive review of past Professional Affairs Committee reports (dating from publication in 2000) and the recommendations presented, coupled with scanning and data collection to compile evidence of implementation of the recommendations. The published reports of Professional Affairs Committees convened in 1999 through 2006^1-8 were reviewed. To accomplish their work, committee members were divided into teams and assigned a portion of the cumulative recommendations to analyze.

Members were provided data collection tools and resource documents. These included a spreadsheet that catalogued the charges and recommendations from each report. The Committee agreed that primary sources to be searched for evidence of implementation of the recommendations included the American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education (AJPE), the AACP website, records of AACP programming (annual and interim meetings, institutes, workshops, etc), and other sources.

Evidence was categorized as publications, programming, or products/services as presented in Appendix 1. Resources such as bibliographies or appendices contained within the reports are noted as well. In the second phase, committee members reviewed the accumulated documentation for evidence of implementation and ranked the relevance of the recommendations to current Association priorities (recruitment/retention of faculty; assessment; quality experiential education). The desired outcome was two-fold: documented evidence of implementation of recommendations (in the form of programs, products and services) and identification of recommendations not yet implemented (i.e., those for which no evidence of action can be found). Of the latter, the committee selected those highly relevant to the Association's current highest priorities and considered these for future action.

EVIDENCE OF IMPLEMENTATION

The Committee found abundant evidence of implementation of important recommendations. Over time, numerous Professional Affairs Committee recommendations were translated into Association action priorities, resulting in products, programs and services directed at our members' success. (See Appendix 1) Quality experiential education as well as faculty/administrator professional development and recruitment/retention were enduring themes across Professional Affairs Committee reports during this period. Implementation highlights related to these priorities include:

• In 2008 a new multidisciplinary module of Education Scholar ⁹ targeted at our preceptor audience was created to provide a resource for professional development for our practitioner-educator partners in experiential education. (Source: 2003 Report⁴, Recommendation 5; 2005 Report⁶ Recommendation 11)

• “AACP is committed to implementing the Joint Commission of Pharmacy Practitioners (JCPP) Future Vision of Pharmacy Practice in 2015.¹⁰ This vision clearly articulates a future vision for pharmacy, how it will be practiced, and how pharmacy practice will benefit society. During the past year three work groups were established to 1) define the practice model that must become the standard of practice in all settings to achieve the 2015 vision, 2) determine actions needed to secure the financial base for that practice, and 3) determine how to effectively communicate to all stakeholders the importance of pharmacists delivering patient-centered care… ”¹¹ AACP is involved in creating and implementing action plans. (Source: 2002 Report³; 2004 Report⁵, Recommendations 3, 4)

• As a faculty and/or preceptor development/recruitment strategy, AACP collaborated with ASHP in 2007 to draft learning objectives for the elective education training component of PGY2 residencies. (Source: 2003 Report⁴, Recommendation 2)

• In 2007 AACP and ASHP collaborated on a study to investigate the capacity of hospitals and health-systems to partner with colleges and schools of pharmacy to deliver strong experiential learning programs. The findings inform action priorities for the two organizations to influence mutual development and support of professional experience programs.¹² (Source: 2004 Report⁵, Recommendation 4)

• The Crystal APPLE Award was inaugurated in 2006. Eight academic-practice partnerships were recognized in 2007 and 2008, representing health-system, ambulatory care, long-term care, and community pharmacy advanced pharmacy practice experiences. Profiles of the recognized partnerships are published on the AACP website.¹³ (Source: 2004 Report⁵, Recommendations 4, 5)

• An annual workshop for professional development of experiential education program administrators was instituted in 2007. (Source: 2005 Report⁶, Recommendation 2)

• A separate standard for experiential education (Standard 14) was included in the revised accreditation standards adopted January 2006 and implemented July 2007.¹⁴ (Source: 2004 Report ⁵, Recommendation 2)

• The 2006 AACP Institute (an annual program designed to promote leadership and continuous improvement of pharmaceutical education) focused on implementation of the new standard on experiential education. Teams of faculty and administrators responsible for the delivery of experiential education came to the Institute to focus on building effective structures and processes for quality administration and teaching/learning. The Institute was offered twice to accommodate almost 2/3 of member colleges and schools. (Source: 2005 Report⁶, Recommendation 2)

• AACP launched the Academic-Practice Partnership Initiative in 2005 that resulted in programs, products and services to assist colleges and schools and our practice partners in successful partnerships for exemplary experiential education. Under this multi-year initiative, AACP has taken leadership in convening practitioner organizations and other stakeholders to strategize collaborations and individual efforts around quality experiential education (Summit to Advance Experiential Education); created the Crystal APPLE Award (2006) to recognize exemplary academic-practice partnerships for experiential education; established the Professional Experience Program Online Resource Library for preceptors and experiential administrators; and commissioned development of the quality criteria-based Advanced Practice Experience Site Profiling System (APESPS) toolkit. (Source: 2003 Report⁴, Recommendation 5; 2004 Report⁵, Recommendations 4, 5, 6, 7)

• At the urging of the 2001-02 AACP Academic Affairs and Professional Affairs Committees,³ the AACP Board of Directors committed to a review and revision of the CAPE Educational Outcomes during 2003-04. Periodic review and revision is necessary to assure the contemporary validity of the educational content and outcomes with emerging sciences and scientific developments and evolving roles of the pharmacist in serving patient and public health needs. The Center for Advancement of Pharmaceutical Education (CAPE) Panel was convened and issued revised educational outcomes in 2004.¹⁵ (Source: 2002 Report³, Recommendation 1)

The committee also noted that Professional Affairs Committee reports/recommendations raised the visibility of issues (e.g., need for experiential education administrator and preceptor professional development, need for revised educational outcomes and accreditation standards, and so forth) which was reflected in publications during this period and in programming at the association level and member level during annual and interim meetings. As an example of the former, a special supplement on experiential education in the community practice environment was published in the American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education.¹⁶ This supplement was developed as a resource for our preceptor community. A second supplement for preceptors in the hospital and health-system environment is planned.

Viewed collectively, the cumulative work of volunteer members serving on Professional Affairs committees as well as committees and task forces of other association units during this time period, supported by the sustained commitment of the AACP Board of Directors, has resulted in significant progress over time. This work influenced the AACP Strategic Plan revision (2004), has committed staff and resources to involving key stakeholders outside the academy to work with the Association on these issues, and has resulted in programs, products, services and future plans to assist Association members to be successful.¹⁷

RECOMMENDATIONS FOR FUTURE ACTION

The committee identified a need for additional resources/action related to select recommendations relevant to faculty recruitment and retention (2003 Report⁴, Recommendations 1, 2, 3; 2005 Report⁶, Recommendation 9) and to quality experiential education (2004 Report⁵, Recommendations 5, 6).

Faculty Recruitment and Retention

A strategic approach is needed to guide AACP outreach to various audiences—students, residents, practitioners, and scientists. While the committee found much activity in this area (including the 2008 Institute), it still felt that there is a lack of sufficient products or resources available to assist colleges/schools in reaching their recruitment goals. Specific resources promoting careers in academia targeted to various audiences are needed. The committee also discussed the need for greater diversity within our faculty and approached this discussion from a pipeline perspective. It was suggested that to increase diversity among faculty, we need to create a diverse pool. Attracting a diverse student body depends on having faculty mentors and preceptors who represent diverse backgrounds.

Recommendation 1

The Association should continue to promote diversity in its members and provide resources for member colleges/schools to address diversity issues.

Action Steps

The action plan should include additional programming and areas of emphasis at Association meetings and in the Academic Leadership Fellows Program. Consider faculty/academic career awareness programming at NPhA/SNPhA meetings and other venues identified with minority faculty.

Considered more broadly, faculty in the minority at their institution for whatever circumstance (e.g., specialized practice, narrowly focused research, demographics) could benefit from association with a mentor at another institution. The committee suggests that AACP could facilitate identifying mentors-at-a-distance and provide networking opportunities.

Recommendation 2

The Association should develop a Faculty Recruitment and Retention toolkit to enhance/share successful recruitment strategies and information about academic careers.

Action Steps

Publications featuring careers in academia are needed targeted to various audiences. AACP should seek professional society journal partners to showcase academic careers in pharmacy to students, clinicians and scientists.

AACP should capture profiles of the successful academics who receive the Association's annual awards and present these in a suitable format for a student audience.

Recommendation 3

Create summer student internships that focus on teaching. Member colleges/schools that have active summer teaching programs could serve as internship sites.

Quality Experiential Education

Committee discussion centered around quality indicators and standardization of evaluation for preceptors, students and practice environments for experiential education.

Recommendation 4

Develop global quality indicators for preceptors and experiential education practice sites.

Action Steps

The Association should consider convening a CAPE Panel in cooperation with the Experiential Education Section to establish consensus on national standardized evaluation criteria and evaluation tools specific to experiential education outcomes and performance standards. The Panel should seek input from stakeholders, including experiential program directors, preceptors and practitioner organizations.

Appendix 1. Implementation of the 2000-2007 Professional Affairs Committees' Recommendations.