AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF COLLEGES OF PHARMACY Development of a Profile System to Display Exemplary Pharmacy Practice Experiential Sites

The purpose of this project was to develop profiles of exemplary pharmacy practice sites. These sites would be desirable as high quality experiential teaching sites for fourth year Doctor of Pharmacy students and would be optimum for Advanced Practice Experiences. They would be considered “benchmarks of excellence ” to which colleges and schools of pharmacy could aspire as they develop and implement their advanced clinical education programs. Three levels of criteria were used to determine the essential elements necessary for a pharmacy practice site and preceptors at those sites to be considered exemplary. Level I relates to the five overarching principles or core competencies reported in the 2001 Institute of Medicine report Crossing the Quality Chasm: A New Health System for the 21st Century. The integration of these five core competencies (listed below) into health professions education was the focus of a 2002 IOM Summit Conference. A complete discussion of findings of this Conference can be found in the 2003 IOM publication, Health Professions Education: A Bridge to Quality