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Director, Pharmaceutical & Respiratory Services McLaren Regional Medical Center Flint, Michigan
| By Lee B Murdaugh RPh PhD. Published by American Society of Health-System
Pharmacists, Bethesda, MD, 2003. ISBN 1-58528-042-9. Spiralbound, xiii + 481
pp. (28 x 24 cm), $313.
www.ashp.org
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Published Online, September 18, 2003. www.theannals.com, DOI 10.1345/aph.1D140
The book is organized into 5 major sections, with 39 supporting chapters: Section 1 — Introduction, 2 chapters; Section 2 — Job Descriptions and New Employee Assessment Tools, 9 chapters; Section 3 — General Competencies, 10 chapters; Section 4 — Pharmaceutical Care Competencies, 11 chapters; and Section 5 — Compounding and Dispensing Competencies, 7 chapters. The overall organization is adequate, although the compounding and dispensing section should logically be placed after the General Competencies section rather than after the Pharmaceutical Care section. Overall, this resource contains many useful templates, checklists, and forms that should serve as a creative stimulant for the development or revision of a comprehensive assessment program.
The first chapter of the Introduction section offers a concise review of competence from general definition to JCAHO standards, although the cited reference was the older 1997 Comprehensive Accreditation Manual for Hospitals JCAHO handbook rather than the more updated version by which most pharmacies will be surveyed. This chapter ends with a brief recommendation on how to effectively use this book, including an overview of the 5 primary tools: job descriptions, initial skills assessment, competence checklists, written tests, and study guides. The second chapter in this section is more instructive in the process of designing and managing an overall competence assessment program. Although much of the information in this chapter will be a review for pharmacists experienced in administration, there are some good organizational tips and, overall, it serves a necessary purpose for professionals newer to the management field.
The primary strength of the next section (Job Descriptions and New Employee Assessment Tools) is that it contains several templates for job descriptions, orientation, performance evaluation, and initial skills assessment. An interesting approach was to combine the job description, competence assessment tool, performance evaluation, and follow-up documentation into 1 document. While this combination document does meet the stated goal of streamlining the number of forms used in the process, it would be difficult to operationalize in most institutional settings where standardization among different departments is expected and where occasionally just 1 section of the form would be appropriate for required documentation. The first 4 chapters of this section are simply the job descriptions/assessment document templates for the 4 major positions (Director, Clinical Manager, Staff Pharmacist, Pharmacy Technician), followed by a chapter titled Resources for Customizing Job Descriptions containing several lists of position titles, skill descriptions, and key phrases to use in the supplied templates. These 5 chapters could easily have been organized into 1 chapter, followed by the orientation checklist and the initial skills assessment documents.
The majority of chapters in the 3 "competencies" sections follow the same structure: study guide, knowledge assessment test, and competency documentation form. Study guides were not provided for all topics listed in the sections, which is reasonable given that some of the topics would need institution-specific information and guidelines. For example, in the General Competencies section, study guides are provided for Confidentiality and Patient Rights, Hazardous Materials, Universal Precautions, and Information Management, but not for Safety, Security, Fire Safety, Disaster/Emergency Preparedness, Infection Control, or Hand Washing. The chapter on Information Management is an excellent example of the comprehensive but concise format, ranging from an overview of data types and display tools (i.e., run charts, pareo charts, histograms) to the skills necessary for communication, utilization, and storage and disposal of information. In the Compounding and Dispensing Competencies section, the only missing study guides were for Sterile Product Preparation and Laminar Airflow Hoods and for Chemotherapy Preparations and Biological Safety Cabinets; while one would consider these to be standard processes, perhaps these were omitted to avoid duplication — the publisher offers separate training tools for these areas. In the Pharmaceutical Care Competencies section, comprehensive, well-referenced study guides were provided for all 11 topics; of particular interest are the 3 revised chapters on special patient populations such as Obstetric Patients, Oncology Patients, and Psychiatric Patients. The only obvious areas not included in this section were 3 well-known areas of interest during JCAHO surveys: Pain Management, Moderate Sedation, and Restraints. These areas should be considered for inclusion in the promised biannual revision and update.
Overall, this book can serve as both a primer and a reference because it includes basic information, creative approaches, and practical templates for developing documents. As such, the audience who would benefit from this book surely includes administrators, managers, and staff members alike. In reviewing this resource, I found myself wishing that it had been in existence when I first entered positions requiring me to perform competence assessment and performance evaluation; it would have been a welcome and well-worn addition to my professional library.
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