On-call duties in hospital pharmacies: National survey and elaboration of a training program for pharmacy residents

Objectives. - During their residency, pharmacy residents are required to attend a hospital on-call program in order to insure the continuum of care for inpatients. This activity is subject to risks, and requires a prior training. Our aim was to develop and to optimize such a training program. Methods. - To this end, we first established a baseline study of the existing training methods in our hospital and those in the different hospitals of France in which pharmacy residents realize in-house on-call duties, associated with an identification of both pharmacists and students' needs in our institution. These preliminary studies were used to create a transversal, structured and harmonized training program. Results. - The results of our national survey highlighted great disparities of training between the establishments and point out the lack of structure, organization and harmonization of the training, which residents expected to be improved. Our training program contains 3 parts: initial theoretical training, initial practical training and continuous training. Beyond the harmonization of the theoretical training's materials between the different sectors of the pharmacy, new tools were introduced like an in-house on-call duty notebook complementary to trainings adapted to note taking, simulation's workshops and interactive quizzes. The training was gradually implemented in our hospital pharmacy, in collaboration with the pharmacists of the different activity sectors. Conclusions. - The next steps of our work will be to assess pharmacists and pharmacy residents' satisfaction about our program and its efficacy. (C) 2020 Academie Nationale de Pharmacie. Published by Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.

Automated summary

Our study aimed to develop and optimize a structured and harmonized training program for pharmacy residents participating in hospital on-call duties, in response to disparities and lack of structure in training observed nationwide. The program consists of theoretical, practical, and continuous training, with the introduction of tools such as in-house on-call duty notebook, simulation workshops, and interactive quizzes to enhance training quality and effectiveness. Collaboration with pharmacists from different sectors facilitated the gradual implementation of the training in our hospital pharmacy.