Virtual site visits–surveying utilization, benefits, and challenges in pharmacy education

Introduction

Pharmacy accreditation standards provide minimal guidance on how the quality of experiential sites should be assessed. While onsite experiential site visits are commonly used for this purpose, there is little information in the literature relating to the use of virtual site visits as a quality assessment strategy. Thus, the objectives of this study were to assess participant use of and experiences with virtual site visits.

Methods

An electronically distributed survey collected information regarding demographics of the institution, use of virtual site visits, barriers to the completion of onsite visits, and perceived advantages and disadvantages of the virtual modality.

Results

Forty-nine programs completed the survey. The majority (82 %) of programs reported using virtual site visits during academic year 2021–2022, a large increase from the pre-pandemic period. Barriers to onsite visits included time allocation, scheduling conflicts, and cost. Advantages of the virtual modality included convenience for experiential and site staff and shorter visit time commitment. The primary disadvantages of the virtual approach were inability to view the site and assess staff interactions.

Conclusion

Virtual site visits present an alternative to the traditional onsite visit for the purpose of experiential quality assurance assessments. While benefits and limitations of this approach exist, schools/colleges of pharmacy may choose to incorporate this method of achieving programmatic goals as a complement to other strategies.