ASHP simplifies pharmacy residency accreditation standards

The American Society of Health-System Pharmacists (ASHP) recently made changes to its pharmacy residency accreditation standards that will streamline the process for residents and trainers.

“We made fairly dramatic changes this time, including simplifying the language so it is more understandable. In the past, the standards have been more academic in their language,” said Janet Silvester, vice president for accreditation at ASHP.

In addition, ASHP has streamlined the number of goals and objectives required to be achieved in a residency program, which causes “a fairly large documentation burden,” according to Silvester. Now, instead of 23 goals and 66 objectives, the new draft standard has nine goals and 26 objectives.

“What we tried to do was reduce redundancy and simplify the standard…We wanted to make sure that each requirement was truly meaningful and contributes to the quality of the resident’s training,” Silvester said.

Plus, the new standards – approved in draft form – reflect current and future pharmacy practice changes, including medication safety issues. “Our standards are based on best practices. As best practices change, we want to have standards to replace them,” Silvester said.

Likewise, as universities’ PharmD program requirements change, ASHP’s residency accreditation standards will reflect those changes. “We look at the latest standards for accreditation in schools of pharmacy and make sure [the standards] build on that education. We want to make sure we aren’t duplicating that in residency,” Silvester said.

ASHP’s ResiTrack software, which evaluates residents’ educational progress, will also be updated soon. “That is getting a signficiant revision as well. There are so many applicants right now, that it has been a challenge for programs to manage. Now, there will be enhanced sorting and matching of applicants,” Silvester said.

The approved draft of the residency accreditation standards will soon be reviewed by ASHP’s Commission on Credentialing and will be reviewed by its full board in September.