B8 - Planning for disruption: Educating future pharmacists to navigate the winds of change

Conference Hall A - Section A

Organised by FIP’s Academic Pharmacy Section, in collaboration with IPSF

Chairs

Julie Akers (Washington State University, USA) and Daisy Volmer (University of Tartu, Estonia)

Introduction

This session will focus on potential disruptions in healthcare delivery by pharmacists and shall explore educational solutions, such as development of affective skills by pharmacists to assist patients in self-management of diseases, educating the profession with a focus on patient safety and elaborating advocacy skills necessary for pharmacists to promote the image and the value of the profession to the public. “Disruptive innovation”, a term of art coined by Clayton Christensen, describes a process by which a product or service takes root initially in simple applications at the bottom of a market and then relentlessly moves up market, eventually displacing established competitors. This phenomenon is as true for the pharmacy profession as for any other industry. Pharmacists are exposed to digital disruptions where decision support will eventually bypass healthcare professionals and shall be deployed direct to consumers.  The role of pharmacists will evolve to optimising self-management of lifestyle and medication adherence and advising on information from non-professional sources.

The request by the United Nations for countries to implement universal health coverage (UHC) by 2030 will further disrupt the status quo of healthcare delivery as we know it.

Programme

14:30 – 14:40 Introduction by the chairs

  1. 14:40 – 15:15 What is innovative disruption?
    Carl Schneider (The University of Sydney, Australia)
  2. 15:15 – 15:50 Patient safety in a time of disease self-management
    Anthony Serracino Inglott (University of Malta, Malta)

15:50 – 16:10 Coffee/tea break

16:10 – 16:45

  1. Universal health coverage ― A game changer
    Mariet Eksteen (Pharmaceutical Society of South Africa, South Africa)
  2. 16:45 – 17:20 Empowering students to become ambassadors of the profession
    Louisa Sullivan (IPSF, Netherlands)

17:20 – 17:25 Conclusion by the chairs

17:25 – 17:30 Room refresh

Learning Objectives

At the end of this session, participants will be able to:

  1. Analyse how disruptive innovation occurs and forecast potential disruptive innovations for the pharmacy profession
  2. Compare educational strategies to facilitate adaptation of the pharmacy profession towards potential disruptive innovations
  3. Evaluate how educational tools empower pharmacists to support patient safety through pharmacovigilance
  4. Lay out educational strategies for early professional development which give student pharmacists the confidence to explain the value of pharmacists to the public and other healthcare practitioners in a disrupted environment.

Type of session: Application-based