Teaching pharmacy students a systematic approach to medication order verification.

Area of Science:

• Pharmacy education
• Patient safety
• Medication management

Background:

• Inpatient medication order verification is crucial for pharmacy students to ensure patient safety.
• A systematic approach is needed for students to apply knowledge and identify drug therapy problems during verification.

Purpose of the Study:

• To describe a systematic approach to inpatient medication order verification for pharmacy students.
• To evaluate the effectiveness of a checklist in identifying drug therapy problems.

Main Methods:

• Implemented an order verification module for second-year pharmacy students at two colleges.
• Utilized a checklist for reviewing medication orders and identifying drug therapy problems.
• Students made "verify or not" decisions and documented them on a game-based learning platform.

Main Results:

• 756 students participated over four academic years.
• Students successfully identified "dose too high" and "no drug therapy problem present" issues.
• Challenges were encountered in identifying "wrong drug," "dose too low/renal dosing," and "duplication of therapy" problems.

Conclusions:

• The order verification checklist proved beneficial for teaching a systematic approach.
• This method aids students in applying didactic knowledge to real-world verification decisions.
• Further refinement may be needed to address more complex drug therapy problems.