Integrating a naloxone-focused population health management experience into an ambulatory care advanced pharmacy practice experience

Introduction

Population-health management (PHM) is using healthcare analytics to target clinical interventions across a population. Many pharmacists are asked to engage in PHM, as these efforts improve outcomes. Veterans Health Administration has developed a population health dashboard (the Overdose Education and Naloxone Distribution [OEND] Dashboard) to identify patients eligible for naloxone, an opioid overdose reversal agent.

Integrating PHM experiences within pharmacy education is supported by current curricular outcomes. Thus, the primary purpose of this project is to determine whether a naloxone-focused PHM experience has positive outcomes in terms of students' perceived skills, knowledge, and attitudes related to PHM and naloxone counseling.

Methods

This single-site, prospective, observational study examined fourth-year student pharmacists on their ambulatory care advanced pharmacy practice experience (APPE). Students used the OEND Dashboard to independently make naloxone interventions throughout the rotation. A survey containing multiple Likert scale questions was administered at the beginning and end of the APPE to assess changes in students' perceived skills, knowledge, and attitudes related to PHM and naloxone counseling. Results were assessed using a two-tailed Wilcoxon Signed-Rank test for paired data.

Results

Between August 2022 and August 2024, 30 students completed an APPE at the study site. Overall, there were positive changes on all six Likert scale items assessing the domains of perceived skills, knowledge, and attitudes. In the post-survey, 96.2 % (27/28) of students responded “Agree” or “Strongly Agree” to “I believe that my efforts on this rotation had a direct impact on patient safety.”

Conclusions

Integration of a naloxone-focused PHM experience had positive outcomes in terms of students' perceived skills, knowledge, and attitudes toward the concepts of PHM and naloxone counseling.