American College of Clinical Pharmacy White Paper: Cultural Competency in Health Care and Its Implications for Pharmacy Part 3A: Emphasis on Pharmacy Education, Curriculums, and Future Directions

Culture influences patients\u27 beliefs and behaviors toward health and illness. As the U.S. population becomes more diverse, a critical need exists for pharmacy education to incorporate patient-centered culturally sensitive health care knowledge and skills into the curriculum. Nursing was the first profession to incorporate this type of learning and training into its curriculums, followed by medicine. Pharmacy has also made great progress to revise curriculums, but inconsistency exists in depth, breadth, and methods across pharmacy colleges. This article addresses important aspects of pharmacy education such as curriculum development, incorporation of educational innovations and techniques into the teaching of patient-centered culturally sensitive health care across the curriculum from didactic to experiential learning, assessment tools, and global education. A preliminary model curriculum with objectives and examples of teaching methods is proposed. Future directions in pharmacy education, teaching and learning scholarship, postgraduate education, licensure, and continuing education are also presented

Preventive health therapy and behavior outcomes from a brown bag medication review for older adults

BACKGROUND: Morbidity and mortality associated with preventable diseases can be reduced with the use of preventive health services. We evaluated the uptake and retention of preventive health behaviors and management of accidental medication poisonings in older adults after a health prevention educational component was combined with a brown bag medication review. METHODS: This study used a cohort design and was conducted in six urban senior centers and three independent senior living communities in Detroit, Michigan. Participants included 85 older adults (\u3e60 years old) taking five or more medications with 63 participants returning follow up materials. Pharmacy personnel conducted brown bag medication reviews that were combined with a preventive health education component. Information was collected on medications, vaccinations, supplement use, and accidental medication poisoning management. Participants were given written recommendations on prescription medications and preventive health therapies to improve health and medication use. An investigator developed program satisfaction survey was administered immediately after the review. An investigator-developed follow-up preventive health implementation survey was conducted at least 3 months later to assess recommendation implementation. RESULTS: Participants\u27 mean age was 75.9 ± 8.5 years. Fifty-six older adults had 124 recommendations in preventive health in total (1-5/participant). Eleven participants had no recommendations. Sixty-three participants (74%) returned follow-up preventive health surveys. Twenty-three percent of recommendations were already implemented with 34% planned to be done in the future. Poisoning management knowledge increased for 13 participants, reporting they would call the poison control center. The program was well received, with participants reporting high satisfaction scores (4.8 ± 0.7 out of 5). CONCLUSIONS: Brown bag medication reviews can be an effective method to promote the uptake of preventive health behaviors among older adults, but additional accidental medication poisoning management education is still needed

American College of Clinical Pharmacy White Paper: Cultural Competency in Health Care and Its Implications for Pharmacy Part 3B: Emphasis on Pharmacy Education Policy, Procedures, and Climate

The Institute of Medicine has stated that greater diversity within health care professionals leads to improved patient outcomes. Therefore, greater diversity within academia and student bodies is required to create future diverse health care professionals. Cultural sensitivity is required from recruitment to physical environment for administrators, faculty, staff, and students. University, college, and department recruitment, search committees, hiring practices, and admissions policies and procedures need to be assessed to determine whether they reflect the applicant pool and patient populations in their regions and whether they are culturally sensitive to a wide variety of cultures. The mission, vision, policies, procedures, curriculums, and environments should also be created or reviewed, modified, and/or expanded to ensure that no administrator, faculty member, staff member, or student is discriminated against or disadvantaged because of cultural beliefs or practices. In addition to discussing the interplay between cultural sensitivity and academic policies, procedures, and environments, this article briefly discusses specific cultural issues related to religion, spirituality, race, ethnicity, gender, age, marital status, veterans, physical, mental, and learning disabilities, and sexual orientation diversity