Evaluation of the entrustable professional activities (EPAs) of the population health promoter domain by North Dakota pharmacists

BACKGROUND: Entrustable Professional Activities (EPAs) are a list of professional tasks that pharmacy educational organizations support, and accreditation organizations encourage, for assessment by colleges and schools of pharmacy. OBJECTIVE: This manuscript evaluates the perceived frequency of performing EPAs in the population health promoter (PHP) domain among pharmacists practicing in North Dakota. METHODS: This survey evaluated the self-reported EPA activities of registered pharmacists living and practicing in North Dakota. For EPAs and supporting tasks in the 6 domains (including the PHP domain), respondents were asked to self-report the number of times during the last 30 days that they perform the task, using a 6 point response scale (0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 or more times). There were 990 pharmacists surveyed, and 457 (46.1%) of pharmacists responded. RESULTS: Within the PHP domain, pharmacists reported performing “Minimize adverse drug events and medication errors” most frequently (mean=3.4, SD=2.0), followed by “Ensure that patients have been immunized against vaccine-preventable diseases” (mean=2.3, SD 2.3), “Maximize the appropriate use of medications in a population” (mean=2.2, SD 2.3), and “Identify patients at risk for prevalent diseases in a population” (mean=1.3, SD=1.9). In these Core EPAs PHP domains, the clinical pharmacists reported the highest level, followed by pharmacy managers and staff pharmacists. CONCLUSIONS: Pharmacists in North Dakota currently perform some population health promoter activities, but not at a consistent and high level. Most of the health prevention activities were medication-related and oriented towards individual patients (micro-level), rather than at a community (population-based) macro-level.