Introductory Pharmacy Practice Experiences - Hospital
The purpose of this experience is to allow the student to gain a greater appreciation for the profession of pharmacy as practiced in the hospital and to develop professional attitudes, judgment and skills needed to function in that setting. The setting for this IPPE is select hospital environments that will incorporate students into the daily operation of a hospital pharmacy.
Hospital pharmacy practice is an integral element of pharmacy training in view of the significant number of pharmacy practitioners choosing this field as a career path. Hospital pharmacy practice is very important for patients so that they may receive the best pharmaceutical care with hopes to overcome their current ailment. In order to provide a more thorough education to students, the hospital pharmacy practice experience provides an early experience to reinforce concepts previously learned in the classroom. As students engage in this IPPE, they will learn key concepts involved with patient care in a hospital pharmacy setting.
Upon completion of this IPPE, the following goals should be accomplished:
- The student demonstrates an acceptable level of professional maturity.
- The student demonstrates appropriate initiative regarding experience activities and assignments.
- The student exhibits responsibility and dependability regarding experience activities.
- The student demonstrates the ability to utilize fundamental drug information resources.
- The student demonstrates the ability to review, interpret and detect problems with medication orders and/or medication profiles accurately and efficiently.
- The student demonstrates the ability to prepare intravenous and other injectable products to be administered to patients.
- The student demonstrates the ability to acquire and retain new knowledge regarding common disease states and medications encountered during the experience.
- The student displays basic knowledge of pharmaceutics, pharmacology, and pharmacokinetics for common medications encountered during the experience.
- The student displays appropriate verbal and written communication skills and is receptive to feedback.
- The student will demonstrate satisfactory achievement or better on competency skill set as outlined in Part II of the evaluation.
Upon completion of this IPPE, the student will be able to:
- Demonstrate the ability to prepare and dispense medications including intravenous products following existing standards of practice and the health system's policies and procedures.
- Understand the steps that must be taken to ensure departmental compliance with accreditation, legal, regulatory and safety requirements as they apply to hospital pharmacy practice.
- Describe the basic administrative activities as they pertain to hospital pharmacy practice in the health system.
- Demonstrate effective communication skills, in verbal and written form, with health care providers and patients by gathering, organizing, and recording information while being able to provide competent consulting and counseling.
- Demonstrate mature and professional attitudes, habits, values, ethics, and behaviors.
- The student can conduct a patient interview and obtain a medication history.
- The student can review, interpret, and detect problems with medication orders and/or medication profiles for patients.
- The student can demonstrate the assembly of an order, including retrieval of the label, selection and verification of correct drug selection, counting the medication, fixation of label (including auxiliary labels), and preparation for final verification by a pharmacist.
- The student can assist in the dispensing of drug orders (including unit dose and stat orders).
- The student can perform applicable calculations related to filling an order and dosing a medication.
- The student can describe inventory management processes for medications, including narcotics, such as ordering, receiving, checking in, securing, and recording medication stock utilization.
- The student can demonstrate the appropriate aseptic technique when preparing injectable drug products.
- The student can describe incompatibilities encountered when preparing injectable drug products.
- The student can describe differences in the preparation of chemotherapy products versus non-chemotherapy products.
- The student can describe the process of preparing parenteral and enteral nutrition products.
- The student can describe the differences between central and peripheral catheters.
- The student can explain the role of the P&T Committee, including membership, drug review preparation, and formulary decision making.
- The student can retrieve and provide prescription and/or nonprescription drug information.
- The student can explain the process the institution uses to report adverse drug events.
- The student can describe the role of automation related to pharmacy operations within this specific setting.
- The student can identify brand and generic names, dosage forms and strengths, therapeutic class, indication, mechanism of action, and common side effects for frequently prescribed medications.