Implementation and assessment of a pharmacy educational program concerning laboratory monitoring for medications

Abstract

Background: The pharmacist's role in monitoring medication therapy, including the ability to order laboratory tests as a delegated medical function, has increased dramatically over the past 20 years. Objectives: To implement and assess the impact of an intervention designed to educate pharmacists about appropriate medication-related laboratory monitoring and clinical interpretation of results. Methods: This pilot project had a pretest-posttest study design. The intervention was an educational program comprising 8 self-directed learning modules, each with a corresponding seminar. Evaluation of the program included scoring of the appropriateness and significance of clinical interventions related to laboratory monitoring, pre- and postprogram test scores, and participants' subjective assessments of their abilities to order and assess the results of medication-related laboratory investigations. Descriptive statistics, the Wilcoxon signed rank test, the Student t-test, and the paired Student t-test were used where appropriate. Associations were assessed with the Pearson or Spearman rho correlation coefficient. All statistical tests were 2-tailed, and the p value for significance was established a priori at 0.05. Results: There was no statistically significant difference with regard to the appropriateness (p = 0.70) or significance (p = 0.94) of clinical interventions undertaken before and after the educational program. Among the 21 pharmacists who completed the program, the average test score (± standard deviation) was 27.2 ± 8.1 before the program, increasing to 39.2 ± 8.7 after the program (p < 0.001). There was a statistically significant improvement in the perceived level of knowledge for each individual module (p < 0.05 for all). Conclusions: The establishment of an educational program led to improvements in both subjective and objective measures of knowledge and perceived abilities to order and assess the results of medication-related laboratory tests.