The development and trial of a new approach to pharmaceutical competency development for primary healthcare personnel in Pacific Island Countries
Keywords:
Assessment, Competency, Experiential Learning, Medicines, Pacific Islands, Pharmacy, Primary Healthcare, Supply ChainAbstract
Background: Any new approaches to pharmaceutical education in Pacific Island Countries (PICs) should consider the ‘20 cultural and learning principles’ shown to be relevant to health personnel in PICs, and be based on the ‘Essential Medicine Supply Management (EMSM) Competency Framework for Primary Healthcare Personnel in PICs’.
Aims: To determine what effective pedagogical approaches can be developed that show the development of country and cadre specific competencies in the area of EMSM for Primary healthcare personnel working at the facility level in PICs.
Method: A two stepped approach was used which included Course Development, and Validation in three PICs.
Results: A four day workshop was developed and validated by 59 participants with the use of skills games and a self- assessment tool demonstrating an improvement in EMSM competency.
Conclusion: This paper has documented the development and validation of a novel experiential approach for the improvement of EMSM competencies in primary healthcare personnel within PICs.
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