Council of Deans Chair Report, July 2018

It has been an honor for me to serve as AACP Chair of the Council of Deans for 2017-2018. The work of the council would not have been possible without the commitment and hard work of the Administrative Board (Natalie Eddington – Immediate Past Chair, Evan Robinson – Chair-elect, Sharon Youmans – Secretary of Knowledge Management and Russell Melchert – administrative liaison to the AACP Board), staff liaison Lynette Bradley-Baker, and the members of committees and task forces. My sincere thanks to all these individuals. My goal this year was to continue the excellent work that was started in 2016-2017 under the leadership of Dr. Natalie Eddington and to focus on how we can make the work of the council result in meaningful impact, with our efforts to advance pharmacy education, the profession and the growth and development of students. Dramatic changes were not anticipated, but steps had to be taken to move forward. Additionally, we expected that one of the ways in which we could make an impact was to stay on course with initiatives rather than start new initiatives all the time. To that end, Drs. Eddington and Robinson and I had conversations about continuity of initiatives while providing the ability for each chair to focus on an area of need.

It has been noted over the last several years that as the membership of the council has grown, it has been more difficult to actively engage members during business meetings. Therefore, a revision of the business meeting agenda and its relationship to the networking sessions were made to promote more engagement by its members. At the July 2018 annual meeting, the council ’s networking sessions were scheduled such that they would take place prior to the business meeting, and a report out would occur at the business meeting rather than as a separate session. Committee reports will be posted in advance of the business meeting and members were requested to review these prior to the meeting so that a discussion can take place regarding the content of the reports rather than just listening to a report. The verbal committees’ reports will be limited to just highlighting the main outcomes of the committees’ work.

Highlights of the committee and task forces’ work are noted below. Staff reports will also be distributed prior to the business meeting and staff have been asked to limit their verbal report to allow time for discussion. Additional time has been allocated for the open forum portion of the meeting along with an advanced call for topics.

In addition, the suggestion for ASHP to meet with CEO deans more than once a year was raised at the ASHP leadership and CEO deans meeting in December 2017. With the assistance of Dr. Lynette Bradley-Baker, a meeting between ASHP and CEO deans took place on Saturday, July 21, 2018 during the AACP annual meeting. In addition, ASHP will be forming a deans’ advisory group to further enhance collaboration between schools and ASHP.

The Nomination Committee forwarded Dr. Phillip Hall (Medical University of South Carolina) and Dr. Wanda Maldonado (University of Puerto Rico) as candidates for chair-elect for 2019-2020.

The COD/COF Pharmacist Patient Care Process (PCPP) Catalyst Team re-directed its efforts in 2017-2018 to focus on implementing a process that can accelerate the adoption of the PCPP in schools and colleges of pharmacy and to reinforce the principles of Kotter’s model for change and implementation science. To further engage school champions, a Connect community was established and two sessions were offered at the 2018 Interim Meeting. Although the task force will not continue next year, the members believe it is important for AACP to continue efforts toward the integration of PCPP in curricula and dissemination in the profession. Therefore, four policy statements were forwarded to the Bylaws and Policy Committee for consideration and these were adopted by the 2018 AACP House of Delegates on July 25, 2018.

The Impact Task Force was charged to identify ways in which members of the council can continue to work on initiatives at venues other than the AACP annual and interim meetings and to determine how members can engage in issues of mutual concern. The task force identified the NABP district meeting as a potential venue and suggestions for how council members can engage. The work of this group is completed.

The Pharmacy Curriculum Outcomes Assessment (PCOA) Task Force was formed in February 2017 to work with ACPE to clarify the intended use of PCOA and to devise a collaborative plan with ACPE to develop an assessment of PCOA as it relates to its intended use. In addition to meeting with ACPE, a survey was conducted of how schools are using PCOA and if it is providing useful information. Preliminary survey results were shared at the Interim Meeting. A committee will be formed to address the recommendations of the task force and the PCOA Assessment Work Group that conducted the survey.

The Population Health Task Force completed its second year of work and will not be continuing. The task force created a definition of “population health” to provide a common foundational understanding of the concept for its members and the pharmacy academy. A survey was conducted to determine the activities and best practices in population health, as defined by the task force, within the academy. Results of the survey will be shared at the Annual Meeting. Additionally, the survey findings along with recommendations will be published to serve as a resource and guide for schools of pharmacy.

The Resolutions Committee was charged to review and revise the council ’s standing rules and procedures. A revised document to reflect clarification of responsibilities and language will be voted on at the council’s business meeting during the Annual Meeting.

The council is appreciative of the support of the AACP Board of Directors for its work and I thank the council for the opportunity to serve as its chair.

Council of Deans/Council of Faculties Pharmacist Patient Care Process Catalyst Team

In 2017-2018, the Catalyst Team revised its objectives from 2016-2017 to streamline its activities and focus on the following six objectives: 1) implement a process to accelerate the adoption of the Pharmacist Patient Care Process (PPCP) in schools of pharmacy; 2) reinforce Kotter’s model of change and implementation science principles, monitor the progress of schools toward adoption of the PPCP; 3) monitor the progress of schools toward integration of PPCP into curricula; 4) engage school champions in the creation of a learning community; 5) share leanings and successes; 6) utilize feedback from schools and learn from their successes and challenges. In working toward these goals, an AACP Connect community was created initially for school champions and subsequently opened to the entire AACP membership for interested individuals based on feedback during the Interim Meeting. Two sessions were conducted at the Interim Meeting to promote dialogue around the value of establishing consistent student learning outcomes, strategies for integration of PPCP into the curriculum and reinforce principles of implementation sciences and Kotter’s model of change. The team believed no additional useful data would be generated by surveying the pilot schools again regarding the integration of the PPCP process, and the team did not identify a more effective way of monitoring the progress of schools. Although the Catalyst Team will not continue next year, the team believes it is important that AACP play a greater leadership and supporting role in the effort to ensure the PPCP remains at the forefront of education and practice efforts throughout the academy and the profession. Therefore, four policy statements regarding the adoption of the PPCP process and the role AACP can serve in adoption by the profession was submitted for consideration by the Bylaws and Policy Committee. Members of the Catalyst Team along with others want to continue be part of the effort to identify strategies to keep the rationale and specifics of the PPCP in the spotlight at every opportunity possible at the local, state and national level.

COUNCIL OF DEANS NOMINATIONS COMMITTEE

Council of Deans Nominations Committee received six completed nominations for the COD Chair-Elect position. After reviewing the submission information, the Nomination Committee selected the following candidates for the COD Chair-Elect slate: Philip D. Hall (Medical University of South Carolina) and Wanda T. Maldonado (University of Puerto Rico).

Members of the 2017-2018 COD Nominations Committee:

Natalie D. Eddington, Chair (University of Maryland), David D. Allen (University of Mississippi), Brian L. Crabtree (Mercer University), Michelle R. Easton (University of Charleston), Mary M. Hess (Thomas Jefferson University), Catherine L. Jarvis (University of Colorado), Steven J. Martin (Ohio Northern), George E. Francisco (University of Georgia), and Gloria E. Meredith (Binghamton University, The State University of New York)

COUNCIL OF DEANS RESOLUTIONS COMMITTEE

The COD Resolutions Committee met several times via conference call between January and May 2018. The committee reviewed the current standing rules of procedure for the COD and discussed how the rules need to be modified to meet the current needs and structure of the organization. Key points of discussion included: 1.1 review and revise the mission statement and specific objectives of the council; 2.0 review and revise the position descriptions of all council officers; 2.5 complete revision of the secretary of knowledge management position to be consistent with AACP bylaws; 2.5 significant discussion on the administrative board representative including several ideas about how to better engage non-CEO deans in the COD; 3.0 review and cleanup election procedures; 4.0 review and cleanup meetings procedures.

The COD Resolutions Committee sought input from current officers of the COD Administrative Board to get ideas on position descriptions and in particular, to consider the role of the representative to the Administrative Board. Significant discussion and input culminated in the final recommendations from the Resolutions Committee to the COD Administrative Board for review and consideration prior to presenting to the COD for vote of approval.

The Resolutions Committee submitted its final recommendations for modification of the COD standing rules of procedure to the administrative board for review on May 8, 2018. The recommendations were approved by the COD at its business meeting on July 23, 2018.

IMPACT TASK FORCE

The Impact Task Force was charged to:

• 1. Determine other venues besides the AACP annual and interim meetings for members to work on initiatives that are identified for a given year or discuss shared issues of concern;

• 2. Develop a process by which such initiatives, topics, areas of concern will be identified for discussion at these other venues;

• 3. Determine how we move beyond discussion to action on identified initiatives/topics/areas of concern; and

• 4. Identify other strategies for engagement and advancement of issues important to the COD.

The Impact Task Force met twice via conference call and conducted business via email. In addition, the task force collected data from participating deans at the AACP Interim Meeting in February 2018. Worksheets were provided to the participants, and a general discussion ensued. This discussion largely focused on better utilization of AACP/NABP district meetings. The final recommendations of the Impact Task Force are:

• 1. AACP should work closely with NABP to schedule district meetings to maximize attendance by schools/colleges.

• 2. AACP should work with NABP to identify the planning committees for each district meeting, and:

  • a. Schedule CEO deans meeting within the meeting;

  • b. Discuss mechanism for schools/colleges within the district to provide input into program planning;

  • c. Some districts may want to consider a 1.5 day meeting rather than a 2.5 day meeting.

• 3. AACP should establish a nationwide agenda for CEO deans meetings at district meetings.

• 4. State coalitions should be encouraged to host one of their meetings within a district meeting.

In addition, the Impact Task Force discussed that scheduling CEO deans meetings at national meetings such as APhA and ASHP would be worthwhile. These meetings should be separate from the already established deans meetings at these conferences. A focused AACP COD agenda for these meetings would be necessary.

PCOA TASK FORCE

The PCOA Task Force was charged to work with ACPE to clarify the intended use of PCOA, devise a collaborative plan with ACPE to develop a controlled assessment of PCOA to collect evidence to assess its use for that purpose, and charge an assessment workgroup that would work with ACPE and our PCOA Task Force to design and execute a study and complete appropriate analyses.

The task force met with Dr. Peter Vlasses (ACPE) to better understand ACPE’s perspective on PCOA. The task force thereafter requested and received permission to meet with the ACPE Board. In preparation for this meeting, the task force created and charged a PCOA Assessment Workgroup to provide an overview of how PCOA is administered and used nationally, to summarize what is currently known about the usefulness of PCOA, and to synthesize recommendations for how PCOA could be more useful to AACP colleges/schools.

The PCOA Assessment Workgroup conducted a comprehensive survey (91% response rate; 126 of 139 schools responded; Attachment 1) of the academy concluding that, while PCOA may offer some useful information regarding cohort knowledge:

• • 40% of schools are not currently using individual student scores for any purpose;

• • studies to date have not shown that PCOA lends any additional insight into student performance over GPA, which is readily available to programs; and

• • fewer than half of schools feel currently available/provided PCOA results are useful for informing curricular quality improvement.

Members of the AACP COD PCOA Task Force and PCOA Assessment Workgroup (Dalton, Maine, Sweet) presented overall recommendations to the ACPE Board of Directors in January 2018, proposing that:

• • a clear purpose for the PCOA exam needs to be explicitly stated, or acknowledged that it is still being defined;

• • additional study of the predictive value of PCOA as a measure of curricular performance and/or individual student performance is needed;

• • NABP expand testing windows and shorten result turnaround time to accommodate the needs of a diverse academy; and

• • NABP and/or ACPE make additional data available to programs (eg, item development, content mapping, individual student testing time, correlation of individuals and/or aggregate PCOA scores with NAPLEX results) and collect program demographics related to PCOA administration to categorize programs into peer comparator groups.

• • Discussion with ACPE board members and NABP representatives (also invited to the ACPE board meeting) centered on the creation of a new task force including representatives from AACP, ACPE, and NABP charged to:

  • • determine the major purpose(s) and usefulness of PCOA to all stakeholders;

  • • discuss how PCOA can be optimized to meet the defined purposes and needs of each stakeholder;

  • • design a study to evaluate whether any changes to PCOA have a corresponding impact on program decisions to revise curricula or to enhance student learning; and

  • • consider the possibility of suspending the PCOA requirement until completion of the study, resuming requirements if the study demonstrates benefits to all stakeholders.

  • • Dr. Lucinda Maine (AACP) assumed responsibility for identifying AACP members to participate in this committee and advance these goals.

POPULATION HEALTH TASK FORCE

The 2017-2018 AACP COD Task Force on Population Health was charged with investigating the role of pharmacists in emerging population health strategies throughout the United States.

The task force developed a working definition of population health, defined as "health programs targeted to a defined population that use a variety of individual, organizational, and societal interventions to improve health outcomes.”

Activities and tasks that were accomplished this year include:

• 1. Created subcommittees and divided the goals of the task force to accelerate the work of the group.

• 2. Developed and distributed a school survey to identify activities and best practices in population health within the academy. The final results of the survey will be reviewed prior to the AACP Annual Meeting in July.

• 3. Developed consensus definition of population health and published survey.

• 4. Survey sent to schools in June 2018.

The task force will complete the following for distribution to the academy following the AACP Annual Meeting in July 2018:

• 1. Develop a business case and financial model for population health as a resource for schools and the profession.

• 2. Develop a toolkit for schools to insert population health components into curricular and co-curricular activities.

• 3. Publish a report of the findings and recommendations of the task force highlighting findings to serve as a resource for schools.

The Task Force on Population Health generated five recommendations for consideration by the pharmacy academy, including curricular and co-curricular activities throughout the academy, and additional future programming on the topic of population health.