Purpose: A collaborative advanced pharmacy practice experience (APPE) education model established within a healthcare institution during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic is described.
Summary: The COVID-19 pandemic caused a nationwide disruption of APPE pharmacy education. Healthcare institutions faced the challenge of educating APPE students while attempting to simultaneously de-densify work areas and reduce transmission risk for employees and patients. A pharmacist coordinator and pharmacist academic partners at a large teaching hospital created a collaborative common core curriculum model for resourceful implementation of APPE education. Healthcare network pharmacists, clinical pharmacist academic partners, and pharmacy residents delivered the curriculum to 35 pharmacy students over a 9-week time period. Main components of the curriculum included patient case discussions, topic discussions, journal club presentations, live continuing education (CE) webinars, and development of pharmacy technician CE programs. A majority of students reported positive experiences working with a variety of preceptors from different specialties (81%) and collaborating with students from other universities (62%).
Conclusion: A health system can leverage institutional, network-wide, and academic partner resources to implement a collaborative APPE curriculum during challenging times such as those experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Keywords: APPE; COVID-19 pandemic; curriculum; experiential education; health system; remote learning.
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