Implementation of a medication education training program for student pharmacists employed within an academic medical center

PURPOSE: To describe the implementation of a student pharmacist medication education training program (the REWARDS Method), to determine if training was effective in preparing employed student pharmacists to provide medication education, and to assess medication education completion rates. SUMMARY: Hospital readmissions are often attributable to poor transitions of care (TOC), and medication education prior to discharge may improve TOC. To expand upon existing medication education efforts, the Johns Hopkins Hospital Adult Inpatient Pharmacy (AIP) designed and implemented the REWARDS Method, a training program to prepare employed second- and third-year student pharmacists to provide medication education. The REWARDS Method includes 6 distinct steps, which incorporate student self-directed and pharmacist-facilitated learning. Students were trained to provide patient education targeting 4 classes of high-risk medications (anticoagulants, inhalers, insulin, and naloxone) on multiple inpatient units served by the AIP. A total of 43 hours of pharmacist time was needed to complete training for the 10 employed student pharmacists. A survey was used to assess preparedness for completing medication education. Survey responses indicated that participants were sufficiently to exceedingly prepared to perform medication education. The division's completion rate for patients requiring education was 79% in 2017, compared to 86% in 2018 (p = 0.006). CONCLUSION: The REWARDS Method is an effective training program that successfully incorporated employed student pharmacists into medication education efforts. Our study demonstrated high rates of students successfully completing training and an increase in the rate of patient education completion.