AMBULATORY CARE CERTIFICATE PROGRAM FOR PHARMACISTS

An ambulatory care certificate program tailored to meet the educationa l needs of Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and Navy pharmacists is described. In 1992, the College of Pharmacy, University of Illinois a t Chicago, worked with the VA and the Navy to design an ambulatory car e certificate program for pharmacists in VA and Navy hospitals. The pi lot course consisted of 103 hours of didactic and experiential educati on. The 10 didactic modules covered both disease manage ment and clini cal skills. The experiential component incorporated pharmaceutical car e steps as applied to therapeutic areas taught in the course. Although the pilot course met most of the original objectives, several unantic ipated problems emerged, including distance learning issues, the numbe r of hours for completing the course requirements, learner variance, t he impact of institutional support on participants' academic success, participants' difficulty in assimilating education into practice, and difficulty with the clinical evaluation tool developed for the course. The course was modified over the next year to address these problems. Now in its fourth year, the course is offered nationally to the VA an d the Department of Defense. In the first three years, 72 of 99 enroll ed pharmacists completed the course. An ambulatory care certificate pr ogram helps Navy and TIA pharmacists develop patient care skills.