Comparison of Student Pharmacists' Knowledge Retention Utilizing Electronic Health Records Versus Simultaneously...

Area of Science:

• Medical Education
• Health Professions Education
• Simulation in Healthcare

Background:

• Traditional pharmacy education relies on didactic learning and basic simulations.
• There is a need to enhance practical skills and knowledge retention in pharmacy students.
• Integrating diverse simulation methods can improve learning outcomes.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the impact of standardized patients and interprofessional teams on knowledge retention using simulated electronic health records.
• To assess changes in student perceptions with the addition of advanced simulation techniques.
• To compare learning outcomes across different simulation modalities in pharmacy skills laboratories.

Main Methods:

• A prospective cohort study involving three groups of first-year pharmacy students across 2018, 2019, and 2021.
• Utilized a simulated electronic health record, progressively adding standardized patients and interprofessional student teams (physician assistants).
• Assessed knowledge retention at one month, case scores, and student perceptions.

Main Results:

• Knowledge retention scores increased from 63.8% (2018) to 71.7% (2019) and 76.1% (2021).
• The addition of interprofessional teams and standardized patients led to significant improvements in knowledge retention.
• Student perceptions also showed significant positive changes with the enhanced simulation methods.

Conclusions:

• Integrating standardized patients and interprofessional team-based care into simulated electronic health record training significantly enhances pharmacy student learning.
• This multimodal simulation approach improves both knowledge retention and student perceptions of the educational experience.
• The findings support the adoption of advanced simulation strategies in health professions education for better skill acquisition.