Evaluation of Pharmacy Students’ Abilities to Provide Pharmaceutical Care

This paper describes an educational project intended to evaluate pharmacy students’ abilities to provide direct patient care utilizing the pharmaceutical care process. Fourteen students enrolled in an elective course and provided care for 18 patients throughout spring quarter 1998. There were a total of 61 drug therapy problems identified in this patient population. The Assurance Patient-Centered Pharmaceutical Care Program (version 1.5.0) offered by Health Outcomes Management, Inc. was utilized to document care provided including the delivery of a Personal Pharmaceutical Care Plan to the patient. Trial compensation claims and carrier invoices were prepared and submitted as part of this project. Student evaluations of the project indicated that this was an important opportunity to draw upon all aspects of their pharmaceutical care curricular preparation to care for actual patients. Students enrolled in this course unanimously recommended that all pharmacy students with an ambulatory care/general practice interest have this patient care experience serve as the focus for their third professional year laboratory instruction. The results of this project indicate that the establishment of student-driven, faculty-observed pharmaceutical care clinics within schools and colleges of pharmacy can help to effectively prepare students for the challenges of an active pharmaceutical care practice.