PGC5102 · Advanced therapeutic decision-making: Acute care

Overview

This unit will develop your ability to apply evidence-based practice (EBP) skills to make therapeutic decisions in acute healthcare settings, by exploring topics in cardiology, endocrinology, gastroenterology, and complex cases (e.g. renal and hepatic impairment). Case-based learning and reflective tasks will challenge you to critically assess and refine your core clinical pharmacy skills: assessing patient information, identifying medication-related problems, making evidence-based recommendations, and formulating collaborative person-centred, individualised care plans to support the quality use of medicines. To undertake this unit, you must be a practising pharmacist in a position with patient contact.

Offerings

Assessment

The Handbook does not list a final examination among the assessment items. That is not a guarantee there is none.

This unit contains one or more competency hurdle assessment tasks that you must successfully complete to be able to pass the unit. You have one attempt, plus an additional assessment capped at 50% of the available marks for the task, to demonstrate your competency in the competency hurdle assessment task. If you fail to meet the hurdle requirement, you will receive a fail grade for the unit regardless of the total marks you achieve.

Assessment details may change. Please refer to the assessment information in Moodle closer to the start of the teaching period.

Requisites

The Handbook lists no prerequisite, corequisite or prohibition for this unit.

Learning outcomes

1. Implement a standardised process to comprehensively assess a patient’s medication therapy, demonstrating a person-centred, evidence-based approach to care
2. Describe the pathophysiology of selected conditions and explain the rationale for the use of medicines, goals of therapy, and expected outcomes of effective therapy for these conditions in an acute care context.
3. In the context of acute care, integrate an understanding of a healthcare consumer’s needs and preferences, relevant evidence, guidelines, and protocols, and the potential benefits and risks of medicines, to make appropriate therapeutic decisions.
4. Demonstrate effective collaboration with other health professionals and consumers to make decisions about medication therapy including prescribing and withholding medicines in acute care settings, recognising scope of practice limitations and communicating decisions appropriately.
5. Develop individualised plans for monitoring medication therapy and evaluating the outcomes of therapeutic decisions, considering patient-specific factors, clinical test results, and medication-specific pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic parameters.
6. Facilitate the transfer of specialised knowledge and skills to peers and other health professionals through effective peer-learning and feedback.
7. Critically reflect on your individual learning process and progress in clinical competence.

Workload

Minimum total expected workload to achieve the learning outcomes for this unit is 144 hours per semester typically comprising a mixture of scheduled online learning activities and independent study. The unit requires on average 10-12 hours of learning activities per week, including teacher directed learning, independent study and reading time, participation in online discussions, research and preparation for assignments. You are required to commit to: • 4 x 2-hour online, real-time (Zoom) workshops • A 1-hour online, real-time (Zoom) case-based discussion hurdle assessment during the final assessment period

Student experience, not official rules. Nothing here changes what the Handbook says.