Introduction: Naloxone has become an important component of preventing deaths from opioid overdose. Although studies have confirmed its cost-effectiveness, naloxone is rarely prescribed proactively in case of accidental overdose. The perception still exists that a reversal agent may enable patients with opioid use disorder to continue abusing opioids without fear of death from overdose. This study was designed to determine the general public's knowledge of naloxone and their perceptions about receiving a naloxone prescription with opioid use. Methods: Participants were recruited through Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk), where a link directed participants to an electronic survey. Participants were included if they were 18 years of age or greater and currently living in the United States. Participants were paid $0.10 USD via Amazon MTurk upon completing the survey. Results: Four hundred five participants successfully completed the survey, and 61% were aware that there is a medication available to treat opioid overdose. The majority of participants responded positively to the idea of acquiring naloxone. Responses were evenly split for agreeing and disagreeing with the statement “naloxone is only necessary for people who abuse opioids.” Although 51% of respondents believed that having naloxone available enables people who abuse opioids, 88% agreed that naloxone is beneficial for people who accidentally overdose on opioids. A majority believed that naloxone should be made available upon request to anyone concerned about opioid overdose. Discussion: Participants were generally aware of the availability of an opioid reversal agent and responded positively to 3 different methods of acquiring naloxone through their prescriber or pharmacist.

Objective. To define essential skills for graduates needed in the four most common sectors of pharmacy practice as determined by expert pharmacy skills laboratory faculty. Methods. A three-round Delphi method was used to establish consensus. In the first round, participants were asked what skills were needed by students at entry to practice in community, health-system, ambulatory care, and managed care pharmacy settings. In rounds two and three, participants were asked to rate each skill with a level of importance using a 10-point Likert scale (1 = not important to 10 = very important). Results. In round one, participants produced a collective list of 289 essential skills. These skill statements were sent to participants in rounds two and three to assign a level of importance. After the third round, participants reached consensus using a mean level of importance for a final list of 69 community pharmacy skills, 47 health-system, 60 ambulatory care, and 15 managed care skills. These skills were then mapped to Entrustable Professional Activities domains for colleges/schools of pharmacy to use as a resource when assessing core competency development in the curriculum. Conclusion. The Delphi technique identified laboratory focused essential skills graduate pharmacists should have prior to entering community, health-system, ambulatory care, or managed care pharmacy practice. These essential skills can be used to guide curriculum development, develop milestone markers, and help ensure students are practice ready.

The profession of pharmacy has come to encompass a myriad of identities including apothecary, dispenser, merchandiser, expert advisor, and health care provider. While these have changed over time, the responsibilities and scope of practice have not evolved to keep up with the goals of the profession and level of education of practicing pharmacists in the United States. By assuming both the product-centric and patient-centric responsibilities for the aforementioned names, our true professional identity is unclear, which can be linked to the development and preservation of impostor phenomenon among the profession. For pharmacy to truly move forward, we need a unified definition for the profession by either letting go of past identities or separating these identities from each other through altering our standards within professional degree programs and practice models. Without substantial changes to the way we approach this challenge as a profession, the problems described will only persist and deepen.

The expansion of pharmacy technician scope of practice in recent years, though remaining somewhat contentious, has afforded multiple opportunities for pharmacy technicians to provide additional assistance within the pharmacy. However, much of the research examining this growth has focused on specific tasks, which were determined by either the researchers themselves or the respective state boards of pharmacy. This study aimed to gain a better understanding of what expanded tasks pharmacists believe technicians should have an increased role in performing. A consensus-building research methodology was used to survey practicing pharmacists to determine which tasks those pharmacists believed technicians should take an increased role in performing. This study used modified Delphi techniques to build consensus among panels of both hospital and community pharmacists regarding 20 setting-specific technician tasks. Results of our study indicated that both hospital and community pharmacists believed technicians should have an increased involvement in performing tasks which are more related to the operations of the pharmacy rather than tasks which are more clinical in nature. This finding illustrates a belief among a segment of pharmacists that expanded roles for technicians should do more to alleviate the managerial and operational burden placed on pharmacists, potentially allowing pharmacists to take on increased clinical roles.