Student Integration into Hospital Clinical Pharmacy Services in an Advanced Pharmacy Practice Experience: A Process Evaluation.

Background: Student integration into clinical pharmacy services during Advanced Pharmacy Practice Experiences (APPEs) is helpful for both student learning and patient care. Identifying how to integrate students into clinical pharmacy services during APPEs is likely to be site-specific, depending on the pharmacy department's service emphasis and capacity in the particular health care setting.

Objective: To identify elements of rotation implementation that facilitated pharmacy students' learning and integration into hospital clinical pharmacy services during a Collaborative Health Care (CHC) setting APPE.

Methods: The study involved students and preceptors who participated in rotations over a 1-year period (May 2023 to April 2024) at a single Canadian faculty of pharmacy. A process evaluation approach was used to collect students' and preceptors' perceptions about the integration of students into clinical services and the types of clinical services that students were able to complete. Data for analysis were collected from transcripts of virtual interviews with students and preceptors, rotation evaluations, and patient-procedure logs submitted by students.

Results: Totals of 71 students and 166 primary preceptors and co-preceptors at 21 rotation sites were eligible to participate. Of these, 11 students and 17 preceptors from 9 rotation sites were interviewed. All 71 students (100%) and 56 (34%) of the preceptors completed online rotation evaluations. Analysis and triangulation of data sources yielded 6 main theme categories related to integration of students into clinical services during the CHC APPE rotation.

Conclusions: This evaluation of the integration of pharmacy students into clinical services during their CHC APPEs in the hospital setting identified elements that positively supported students' learning and their contribution to the practice setting. Both preceptors and students valued student integration. Lessons learned in this project may be helpful for other pharmacy experiential education programs.