Overview of the PRN

The ACCP Pediatrics PRN was created in 1993 with 90 members. Since then, the PRN has grown exponentially and currently has over 900 members. The Pediatrics PRN includes many individuals who have held prominent positions in ACCP, including a past president, past board members, and numerous ACCP Fellows.

The Pediatrics PRN provides a forum for professional interaction and networking that leads to opportunities for collaborative research, problem solving, and professional discussion of issues relevant to the pediatric practices of its members. The PRN’s primary goal is to support the development and promotion of excellent and innovative pediatric clinical pharmacy practice, research, and education that positively influences patient care.

Engagement Opportunities and Resources

The Pediatrics PRN has several opportunities for resident/fellow involvement, including committee participation, journal club presentations, and awards. PRN committees that commonly involve trainee members include the Education, Nominations, Professional Advancement, Research, and Social Media committees. The PRN currently hosts a resident/fellow-led journal club that offers trainee members the opportunity to present a national webinar to the PRN membership. The PRN also offers a travel award to resident/fellow members for each ACCP Annual Meeting. This year’s award went to Genevra Galura, Pharm.D., a PGY2 pediatric pharmacy resident at the University of Chicago Medicine, Comer Children’s Hospital.

Current Clinical Issues – Pediatric Education and Pediatric Pharmacy Impact on Direct Patient Care

As in many specialty areas, clinical pharmacists wishing to practice in pediatrics require additional focused training. Unlike other specialty areas, however, pediatrics requires a broad understanding of all areas and diseases, not just pediatric cardiology or pediatric endocrinology. The pediatric age group accounts for about one-fourth of the U.S. population, and around 22% of children in the United States receive prescription medication each month. Many reports identify that pediatric patients are at higher risk of medication errors than their adult counterparts, often as a result of the need for patient-specific weight-based dosing. Together, these requirements set the foundation for the need for a well-trained pediatric pharmacy workforce.

Preparing pediatric pharmacists for future practice starts in the classroom in pharmacy schools. Earlier this year, a joint statement published by the ACCP Pediatrics PRN, the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy Pediatric Pharmacy Special Interest Group, and the Pediatric Pharmacy Association included recommendations for pharmacy schools¹:

• Incorporate basic pediatric content with pediatric-focused learning objectives throughout the required curriculum.
  • Pediatric content should be taught by pediatric-trained faculty or content experts in specific fields of pharmacy.
  • The curriculum should include 30–50 hours of pediatric content to ensure an adequate level of competency.
• Offer an elective course in pediatrics.
• Integrate active-learning strategies into the pre-APPE pediatric pharmacy curriculum.
• Ensure that each pharmacy graduate completes at least one pediatric-focused APPE. When a pediatric APPE is not available, adapt APPE programs to allow the student to demonstrate competence in applying level 3 or higher Entrustable Professional Activities to pediatric patients.
• Support concentrations in pediatric pharmacy.

In addition to the joint commentary, the Pediatrics PRN published an opinion paper this year titled “Evidence Demonstrating the Pharmacist’s Direct Impact on Clinical Outcomes in Pediatric Patients: An Opinion of the Pediatrics Practice and Research Network of the American College of Clinical Pharmacy.”² This paper, which was also endorsed by the Pediatric Pharmacy Association, outlined the many interventions and improvements in patient care that have been documented in the literature. The following table describes areas in which the direct impact from a pediatric pharmacist was documented.

Table 1. Summary of Pharmacists’ Direct Impact

The opinion paper concludes that, although evidence supports the pharmacist’s role in improving clinical outcomes,

Gaps in the literature on the impact of pharmacists in other settings such as primary care, ambulatory care, neonatal critical care, bone marrow transplant, emergency medicine, and solid organ transplant still exist. This indicates a critical need for research on true patient clinical outcomes by pediatric pharmacists.

Accordingly, those of us in the Pediatrics PRN hope to see more continued documentation of the work being done by the PRN membership to continue to justify our services and the role we play in improving the lives of pediatric patients.

References

1. Cox CL, Todd TJ, Lubsch L, et al. Joint statement on pediatric education at schools of pharmacy. Am J Pharm Educ 2020;84:ajpe7892.
2. LaRochelle JM, Smith KP, Benavides S, et al. Evidence demonstrating the pharmacist's direct impact on clinical outcomes in pediatric patients: an opinion of the Pediatrics Practice and Research Network of the American College of Clinical Pharmacy. J Am Coll Clin Pharm 2020;3:786-92.