The Online Clinical Pharmacy Challenge portal will be open from 7:00 a.m. until midnight (EDT) on each scheduled day of competition. All eligible teams will compete in Online Round 1. The top 64 teams will advance to Online Round 2. At the conclusion of Online Round 2, the top 32 teams will advance to Online Round 3. The top 16 teams will advance to compete in Online Round 4. Teams will be notified via e-mail by 2:00 p.m. (EDT) the day after each online round of competition regarding their eligibility to compete in the next round of the competition.
The top eight teams will compete in live quarterfinal round competition at the ACCP Annual Meeting on November 11, 2023. Semifinal and final rounds of the competition will be held on November 12-13, 2023.
Each round will consist of questions offered in the three distinct segments outlined below. Item content used in each segment has been developed and reviewed by an expert panel of clinical pharmacy practitioners and educators.
Trivia/Lightning (5 minutes)
Participants will have the opportunity to answer up to 15 true-false or multiple-choice questions. Each item answered correctly will be worth 75 points. (Please note: True-false items will only be used in the online rounds. No true-false items will be used during the live rounds.) The subject content for questions in this segment will focus on the following categories:
- Pharmacology (including, but not limited to, mechanism of action, side effect profiles, drug interactions, dosing, approved indications, and monitoring parameters)
- Pharmacokinetics/Pharmacodynamics
- Pharmacogenomics
- Clinical Pharmacy History
- Biostatistics
- Health Outcomes
Clinical Case (8 minutes)
Participants will be presented with a clinical case vignette (300 words or less) and a series of five one-best-answer questions based on the information in the case text and/or supporting laboratory, physical examination, and/or medical history information contained therein. Point values for each question in this category will be assigned on the basis of difficulty (one 100-point item, two 200-point items, and two 300-point items).
Jeopardy-style (12 minutes)
Participants will have an opportunity to answer questions of varying point values (100, 200, or 300 points) in five predetermined categories and may answer as many as possible within the allotted time. All items in this segment will be multiple` choice. Potential categories may include, but will not be limited to, the following.
- Anticoagulation
- Asthma/COPD
- Biostatistics
- Cardiovascular Disorders
- Clinical Trial Design
- Critical Care
- Dermatology
- Emergency Medicine
- Endocrinology
- Geriatrics
- GI/Liver
- Hematology/Oncology
- Immunology/Transplantation
- Infectious Diseases
- Men's Health
- Nephrology
- Pain and Palliative Care
- Pediatrics
- Psychiatry/Central Nervous System Disorders
- Rheumatology
- Vaccinations
- Women’s Health
Tie Breaker
Online Rounds: The team’s score will be displayed at the end of each segment of the competition. In the event of a tie, the winner will be determined on the basis of the time required to complete each segment of the competition. All examinations will be time stamped. Time spent viewing instructional pages will not count toward total examination time.
Live Rounds: Please note in the event of a tie score between teams in the Quarterfinal, Semi-Final or Final Rounds of competition, the teams will be presented with a sudden-death tie- breaker item. Teams will NOT be able to select a category for the tie-breaker items. Items for use in a tie-break situation have been pre-selected randomly from the pool of available items. Tie-break items are designed as “fill-in-the blank”/one correct answer only questions.
The moderator will read the tie break item. Each team then has 30 seconds to write down their answer on the tie-break answer form provided onsite. The moderator will call for each team to read their written answer. If only one team has the correct answer, said team is declared the winner. Should both teams answer correctly or neither team answer correctly, a second tie-break item will be introduced. However, beginning with the second tie-break item, each team must provide an answer and wager a point value along with their answer.
The wager must be a whole number greater than zero but less than or equal to the number of points said team has earned to this stage of the competition. Each team will have 30 seconds to write down their point wager and answer on the tie-break form provided onsite. The moderator will then call for each team to read their written answer and wager amount.
If a given team’s answer is correct, said team will have the amount of wagered points added to their total score. If the answer is incorrect, the wagered points will be deducted. The team with the most points after the wagered points are added or deducted to their score will be declared the winner. Should the result of the wager outcome by both teams end in another tie, the process will be repeated until a winner is determined.
The onsite judge’s panel will determine if the answer written is correct. Exact spelling of the correct answer is not required, provided the judges can reasonably determine the nature of the answer as written. Decision of the Exam Panel Judges is final.