Entrustable professional activities (EPAs) transform abilities into specific, practical words that define the tasks and obligations of physicians who have demonstrated competency and knowledge in a subject. EPAs are specified for Hospice and Palliative Medicine physicians but not for other members of HAPC interprofessional teams, such as pharmacists. For a study, researchers sought to create EPAs for HAPC pharmacists.
An 11-member HAPC pharmacist workgroup was formed to produce prospective EPAs utilizing nominal group and modified-Delphi methodologies. A priori determined at ≥60%, the content validity index was utilized as a measure of consensus. Vetting was accomplished through intra- and interprofessional stakeholder discussion groups, as well as a countrywide poll of HAPC pharmacists.
About 15 HAPC pharmacists’ EPAs were produced through an iterative process of workgroup and stakeholder consensus-building. All 15 EPAs in the workgroup attained 70% agreement, suggesting adequate internal validity. In a national poll of 185 HAPC pharmacists with a 20% response rate, 13 EPAs were assessed as “essential” by the majority of respondents, while 2 were classified as “important but not necessary” by the majority of respondents. According to respondents, the 15 EPA sets adequately represented the key professional duties of HAPC pharmacists (median rating of 5 on a Likert-like scale, IQR 1).
Fifteen consensuses EPAs characterize core HAPC pharmacist tasks such as direct patient care, leadership, education, and scholarship. These EPAs will help to guide pharmacist training programs, HAPC services looking to add a specialist pharmacist to their team, and current HAPC pharmacists.
Reference: jpsmjournal.com/article/S0885-3924(22)00470-5/fulltext
