July 13, 2022
Faculty from the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy are recipients of the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy’s (AACP) 2022 Award of Excellence in Scholarship in Experiential Education.
The award recognizes Macary Weck Marciniak, Pharm.D., Jacqui McLaughlin, Ph.D., and Nicole R. Pinelli, Pharm.D., MS., for their publication, “Leveraging an Implementation Fidelity Framework to Assess Quality in Experiential Education.” Colleague Laura A. Rhodes, Pharm.D., of Palm Beach Atlantic University, led the development and implementation of this project during her Community Practice Engagement Fellowship at the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy.
At the School, students participate in a curriculum that incorporates a series of three, two-month introductory pharmacy practice experiences (IPPEs) at partner sites off-campus. However, until now, a framework had not existed to objectively examine the quality of education at experiential sites.
Through their research, Rhodes, Marciniak, McLaughlin, and Pinelli developed a framework that identifies variables at each site, defines benchmarks, and computes a fidelity score for each IPPE site location.
“We began by collecting data from our Pharm.D. course syllabus and learning from 50 sites that had hosted 147 students for IPPEs,” Pinelli said. “From there, we were able to review data for key variables such as patient care activities, preceptor compliance, and overall site training and evaluation that helped us to build an objective framework for scoring the quality of experiential sites.”
Ultimately, Pinelli hopes this framework can be adapted by other schools to assist in determining quality assurance in experiential programs.
Laura Rhodes, PharmD, notes, “Fidelity scores can be a tool to target site training efforts. Data collected over time could be shared in a way that is actionable for experiential programs staff and for site preceptors, enabling improvement of the learning experience over time.”
“At the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy, our students complete 50% of their curriculum in real-world pharmacy settings,” Marciniak said. “Our sites and preceptors are valued partners in our efforts to prepare exemplary practitioners and delivery quality care across the state of North Carolina.”
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