Members from the University of Florida College of Pharmacy were selected as recipients of the 2025 Award for Excellence in Assessment by the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy, or AACP. This award acknowledges an assessment initiative or project that uses systematic collection, review and use of information to improve the Pharm.D. program.
The trio of Karen Whalen, Pharm.D., associate dean for professional advancement and assessment and a clinical professor in the Department of Pharmacy Education and Practice, Carinda Feild, Pharm.D., associate director of experiential programs, lead regional coordinator and a clinical professor in the Department of Pharmacy Education and Practice, and Aimee McKinney, a data management analyst III with curricular affairs and accreditation, earned the honor with their project titled, “Ready or Not? Design and Evaluation of an APPE Readiness Assessment Dashboard.”
Through a collaborative and iterative process, this dashboard-based tool uses a variety of indicators to identify students who are not yet ready for advanced pharmacy practice experiences and those who are ready but at risk of being challenged by those experiences. Examples of these indicators include professionalism, patient care course grades, knowledge of top 200 drugs and calculations milestone examination.
“The college has been using the dashboard for more than five years and has continued to refine it through continuous quality improvement, which includes adding, removing or updating indicators based on data and professional trends,” Whalen said. “Data is collected each March for our third-year students and assembled for easy visualization in a dashboard.”
Students with a high number of flags (six or more) are considered not ready and are moved into a specialized pre-rotation with a coaching and supportive preceptor who will help train them in skills essential for success on rotations. Students with multiple flags (less than six) are deemed ready but may be at risk for substandard performance on rotations. These students are placed on a monitored student list and will have close follow-up and check-ins with the experiential office to support their success in the patient care environment.
“This project has involved so many people in the college and has really changed how we approach determining readiness for advanced pharmacy practice experiences and supporting our students in their final year,” Feild said. “We believe in the work we are doing here and to have the opportunity to share that with others and help them support their students is very satisfying.”
The award will be presented at the AACP Annual Meeting in Chicago, July 19-22. The trio will share their project through a 30-minute presentation and a poster session.