Improving student education and patient care through an innovative introductory pharmacy practice experience

The standards of the Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education (ACPE) for doctor of pharmacy programs require pharmacy curricula to provide students with introductory pharmacy practice experiences (IPPEs), which are defined as “practice experiences offered in various practice environments during the early sequencing of the pharmacy curriculum for the purposes of providing transitional experiential activities and active learning.”1,2 According to the standards, IPPEs “must involve actual practice experiences in community and institutional settings and permit students, under appropriate supervision and as permitted by practice regulations, to assume direct patient care responsibilities,” and they should “continue in a progressive manner leading to entry into the advanced pharmacy practice experiences.” IPPEs must constitute at least 5% of a curriculum’s length (at least 300 hours); this is a substantial increase from previous experiential education requirements that has challenged schools of pharmacy to identify creative ways to meet the IPPE requirements with existing (and often strained) resources.