A transitions of care (TOC) PharmD elective and its impact on students' perceptions on their TOC knowledge, skills,...

Transitions of care (TOC) continue to evolve as a problem within our health care system and is a direct driver to worsened patient outcomes. Currently information of in-depth instruction and application of TOC content within health care education, especially pharmacy, is limited. In 2012, a small team of faculty members created a specialized TOC pharmacy elective for third year doctor of pharmacy students. The purpose of this paper is to describe the impact of this TOC course on students' perceptions on their TOC knowledge, skills, and attitudes over the four years course span.

A pre-/post-paper anonymous survey was distributed to the students. Descriptive statistics captured the analyzed survey questions into four main themes. Within each respective theme, quantitative data were provided for pre- and post-survey responses to illustrate the difference in the scores with corresponding P values to showcase if significance was present.

The response rate of the survey was 100%. Within all of the respective themes, all of the survey questions, pre- to post-responses, had a significant shift toward a higher degree of agreement.

This study illustrates the impact a course dedicated to TOC has on student's learning.