Pacific University School of Pharmacy Joins Consortium Overhaul of APPE Evaluation Tool with New Tool Available May 2024

The Northwest Experiential Consortium (NWPEC) is made up of seven pharmacy programs located in the Northwest Region and includes (Pacific University, Oregon State University, University of Washington, Washington State, University of Montana, University of Wyoming, and Idaho State University).

These programs often work together on collaborative projects related to experiential education and most recently have been revising the APPE evaluation tool that all programs use. As background, NWPEC created a shared APPE form that has been in use since 2016, but with new educational expectations, accreditation guidelines, and changes in the profession, it is time to update how we evaluate APPE students.

We aim to have the revised form active for Block 1 in May 2024. Several evaluation categories in the new evaluation tool are similar to the current evaluation tool; however, one of the main scales has been changed to an entrustment scale.  

Entrustable Professional Activities (EPAs) have emerged as an important and intuitive way to evaluate pharmacy students.  EPAs describe essential activities that reflect day-to-day practice that pharmacy graduates should be expected to perform without direct supervision upon graduation. When evaluating EPAs, preceptors will assess the level of supervision a student requires to perform the specified task (i.e., what level of trust or entrustment does the preceptor have in the student completing the task or responsibility).  For example, when a student is creating a patient care plan, is the student at the most novice level of only observing this activity or at the most advanced level of independently performing this task with intermittent supervision and feedback?  Similarly, is the student completing a task perceived as ‘unsafe and/or unaware’ or has that student developed to being ‘safe and proficient’? 

Find more information about EPAs in pharmacy

While EPAs will be an important part of the updated APPE evaluation form, we will still assess other essential areas, such as communication and professional attributes.  As an active preceptor for our program you will receive an invitation to review the drafted APPE evaluation tool and provide feedback. We hope you will participate in helping us to generate a user-friendly and effective APPE evaluation tool.