Advertisement

Blog Viewer

The Pharmacy Student's Role in Evolving and Expanding the Practice Advancement Initiative (PAI)

By Violet Valencia posted 04-24-2017 20:06

  

The evolution and expansion of the pharmacist’s role, via recent legislative progress and additional post-graduate training, has allowed for the broadening of pharmacist services offered to patients and their ability to positively impact the primary care provider shortages currently challenging our healthcare system. A pharmacist’s expert knowledge of medications allows them to play an integral and valuable role in patient health and safety outcomes in various settings such as inpatient practice and ambulatory care. The Practice Advancement Initiative (PAI) aligns its recommendations to advance the pharmacists’ role by becoming decentralized and supporting a larger direct presence in the care of patients both individually and as a part of a healthcare team.


The PAI is an important concept for pharmacy students, as well as other health professions, to grasp in order to function in a capacity where the pharmacists’ role is fully understood and appreciated. As a student leader, I have pinpointed three specific activities that could increase my student colleagues’ awareness of the PAI and allow them to gain proper understanding of the importance of the pharmacist’s expanding role. The activities will utilize 1) listen, 2) read, and 3) do approaches when learning about PAI. These three activities are 1) symposiums offered to all nine health professional programs within WesternU, 2) the publication of articles within the CSHP Student Chapter bi-annual newsletter, and 3) promotion of PAI through our CSHP pharmacist-student mentorship program. The ability to have multiple avenues of exposure for my student colleagues will allow for better introduction of the PAI topics and solidification of the importance of the initiative within healthcare.


Listen - By providing a symposium welcoming all colleges on the WesternU campus, students can learn, explore and discuss the PAI together. This can be accomplished through a series of one-hour symposiums where guest lecturers knowledgeable in the initiative can further elaborate on current development of PAI models within their facilities. Additional topics include how pharmacists can become certified or pursue post-graduate residency training, the expanding technician role, the value of pharmacists on grand rounds, and how pharmacist services can help alleviate the shortage of primary care providers. As this would be a series offered once a month, a small questionnaire could be given at the end of each session to gauge what areas the students may need additional information in.


Read - Articles can be written and published in the CSHP Student Chapter bi-annual newsletter providing student members an overview of the PAI recommendations and its current impact on the pharmacists’ role. During my past position as the CSHP Director of Legislative Affairs, I would draft my newsletter articles focusing more on specific policies and legislative advances however this could be a great avenue to increase the awareness and understanding of PAI within these articles. By combining these two topics, students could learn about policy changes taking place and how these would impact clinical pharmacist’s ability to care for their patients. Through this promotion of awareness of the different facets that make up the PAI students can gain new insight on how this will impact patient care.


Do - The WesternU CSHP student chapter is currently working on the advancement and development of their pharmacist-student mentorship program. There is tremendous opportunity for students to interact with experienced pharmacists, from local health-systems pharmacy associations, who are working with a PAI model at their facility or are implementing changes at their site to better incorporate pharmacists into the healthcare team. This would be a strong area of exposure for students interested in becoming advanced practice pharmacists because the experience gained from this mentorship program would allow the students to become knowledgeable of the subject in order to efficiently incorporate it within their future practice. Wherever possible, students may shadow their mentors at their practice.


When pharmacists become recognized for the extent of their unique contributions to patient medication safety and health outcomes, the profession as a whole can continue to move forward. In order for this to happen, the realization and appreciation of the PAI needs to be fostered while students are still in school. Pharmacists are drug experts, problem solvers, and have much to offer a healthcare team when it comes to direct patient care. As a student leader, I fully intend to continue promoting the awareness and understanding of the advancing pharmacist role among my student colleagues in hopes to further expose them to the PAI as to encourage incorporation and development of models at their future practice facilities.

Violet S. Valencia
Doctor of Pharmacy Candidate 2018
Western University of Health Sciences,
College of Pharmacy
Pomona, CA


0 comments
278 views

Permalink