ASHP Leadership Agenda Item
Foster optimal models for team-based, patient-centered care that includes the pharmacist as the expert in medication therapy management.
Background
Quality improvement is the ongoing process to ensure that patients receive the highest quality care. One way that pharmacists and pharmacy students significantly improve the quality of patient care is by working collaboratively with other health care professionals (e.g. physicians, public health professionals, nurses). Without this collaboration, health care delivery is fragmented and poorly coordinated. The training and expertise of pharmacists is critical to the multidisciplinary patient care team to optimize patient care; as students, it is imperative to appreciate this active role health-system pharmacists play in collaborating with other health care professionals to improve the quality of care. The Institute for Healthcare Improvement’s (IHI) Open School for Health Professions is an interprofessional educational community, on- and offline, whose goal is to advance quality improvement and patient safety competencies within the future generations of healthcare professionals worldwide.
Objectives
- To demonstrate the vital role of health-system pharmacists and pharmacy students in quality improvement and patient safety
- To increase pharmacy students’ awareness of the IHI Open School for Health Professions
- To expand quality improvement and patient safety knowledge to pharmacy students and other future healthcare professionals
- To facilitate innovative discussions on healthcare topics concerning quality improvement, patient safety, and patient-centered care
- To become skilled in quality improvement, patient safety, teamwork, leadership, and patient-centered care
- To provide a network for pharmacy students to collaborate with other future healthcare professionals regarding important healthcare issues
SSHP Project Ideas
- Coordinate Interprofessional Seminars
- If your school is part of system with multiple health science programs, facilitate the development of an interprofessional seminar series on ethics, leadership or health reform.
- Host a series of meetings for pharmacy students and other health care professional students to discuss the importance of interdisciplinary care to patient safety and quality improvement. Use resources such as case presentations and videos (IHI Open School resource page.)
- Develop and implement an interprofessional quality improvement project (possible collaboration with an established IHI chapter on your campus) ensuring active pharmacy student involvement and leadership.
- Interprofessional/Interdisciplinary Community Health fair to demonstrate to community the different roles of health care professionals
- Partner with a local hospital or health-system to facilitate student involvement with quality improvement projects.
Resources
ASHP’s Quality Improvement initiative
AHRQ Health Care Innovations Exchange for Health Care Professionals
Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Hospital Quality Initiative
Institute for Healthcare Improvement: Open School for Health Professions
The National Academies Health and Medicine Division
National Quality Forum
The Joint Commission
