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Entrustable Professional Activity in Medical Reconciliation as an assessment tool to measure competency of pharmacy pre-registration students

European Statement

Education and Research

Author(s)

Ula Bozic, Matthias Witti , Jan Zottmann , Martin Rudolf Fischer, Yvonne Marina Pudritz

Why was it done?

Among other functions of EPAs (description of activities as a guide for students, function as a curriculum guideline), they can be used as assessment tools – in our case, to identify gaps in students’ knowledge/skills and, depending on the results, to aid guiding curricula development of our educational program to ensure high quality training service.

What was done?

Entrustable professional activities (EPAs) are observable clinical activities consisting of knowledge, skills and attitudes that can be entrusted to learners over time. In German pharmacy education, EPAs have not yet been developed or used. For this project, we developed a Medical Reconciliation EPA for pharmacy pre-registration students taking part in a rotational programme at LMU University Hospital Munich. Four steps were required for the development: (1) Development of content for EPA description and the associated checklist by a working group of clinical pharmacists through literature review and work analysis. (2) Validation of the developed EPA and checklist by an independent expert group of clinical pharmacists from across Germany. (3) Application of the EPA and checklist in an assessment situation to check for inter-rater reliability. (4) Roll-out of EPA and checklist for assessment of pharmacy pre-reg students at LMU.

How was it done?

Since EPAs are a new concept in (German) pharmacy education, their concept as well as their assessment process with entrustment decisions required explanation in detail to facilitators and students alike in several workshops, which we have successfully organised and executed.

What has been achieved?

Through the implementation of this EPA, we can assess students’ competencies in performing medication reconciliation, identify the weaknesses of our training programme and adapt the content to improve students` skills in their performance.

What next?

Further EPAs with a focus on hospital discharge and medication analysis are being developed. With EPAs, it is possible to translate theoretical competencies into observable activities that can be assessed in a clinical setting. As pharmacists in Germany are increasingly involved in clinical practice, there is a need to assess their skills in performing day-to-day clinical tasks. EPAs are an excellent tool for this purpose.

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