Drug information quality assurance program used to appraise students' performance

Area of Science:

• Pharmacy education
• Drug information services
• Quality assurance in healthcare

Background:

• Evaluating student performance in drug information services is crucial.
• Objective metrics are needed to assess the quality of student responses.

Purpose of the Study:

• To implement and assess a quality assurance program for evaluating doctor of pharmacy students.
• To objectively measure student performance in a drug information service rotation.

Main Methods:

• Developed two five-point rating scales for judgmental and nonjudgmental drug information responses.
• Preceptors and requesters evaluated student responses using these scales.
• Assessed 660 responses from 22 doctor of pharmacy students.

Main Results:

• Preceptors rated 52.3% of responses as excellent (score of 5).
• Requesters rated accuracy, completeness, objectivity, and usefulness highly (mean > 4).
• Timeliness scores were lower but acceptable; interrater reliability was moderate.

Conclusions:

• A structured quality assurance program offers an objective method for evaluating student performance in drug information services.
• The program demonstrated effectiveness in assessing student competency and response quality.