(142) Transitions of Care Elective: Students’ knowledge, skills, and perceptions

Objective : Evaluate pre and post students’ knowledge, skills, and perceptions of newly developed transitions of care (TOC) elective.

Methods: TOC elective was introduced Spring 2021 for third-year pharmacy students. This 2-credit course meets weekly progressing from instruction about TOC to simulations and direct patient care. On the first and final day, students completed a knowledge and perception survey and participated in a TOC simulation for communication assessment evaluated by faculty rubric.

Results: The results of the pre and post assessments for two cohorts totaling N=23 students who completed the elective have shown improvements in various areas. These areas include identifying a pharmacist's role in transitional care (16 (70%) vs 23 (100%)), recognizing the LACE+ readmission risk tool (9 (39%) vs 16 (70%)), and defining social determinants of health (9 (39%) vs 14 (61%)).The students' verbal communication skills have also shown improvement, transitioning from mostly novice (50-75%) and unacceptable (25-95%) to mostly competent (25-60%) and novice (30-40%) on the rubric. The students' perception of their skills also improved. While initially, students were more likely to disagree that they had the necessary skills for transitions of care, they all agreed or strongly agreed that they understood a pharmacist's role in TOC and had effective communication skills by the end of the course.

Conclusions: Despite faculty evaluation of novice verbal communication skills, students demonstrated baseline knowledge about TOC and confidence in their communication skills. Notable growth was observed in faculty-evaluated verbal communication skills, with students transitioning to a mostly competent level. Additionally, students’ perception of knowledge and skills related to TOC increased significantly throughout the course.