Development of a Virtual Pharmacy Resident Conference

Individual VHA facilities frequently try to find ways to increase collaboration between VISN sites. The virtual conference format can help this collaboration. Sharing information between sites through a virtual conference may decrease duplication of projects across facilities, and each facility can learn from the mistakes of the others as well as the successes.

The VHA has a standing contract with ACPE, and therefore, registration fees were not required for this conference. For health systems that may not have such a contract, an ACPE registration fee may be required; however, this fee would still be considerably lower than the travel costs of an in-person conference.

Experience preparing and delivering a virtual presentation is useful for pharmacy residents. Delivering a virtual presentation offers its own set of challenges, such as learning how to engage an audience. Exposure to this type of public speaking may benefit residents as they progress on their career paths.

To prepare for this conference, a tutorial was created to help develop presentations. Residents were encouraged to learn how to not only deliver the presentation using the web conference technology, but also incorporate active learning exercises throughout the presentation to maximize involvement and engagement of the audience. For most resident presenters, this was the first experience delivering a virtual presentation.

Finally, a virtual conference format allows pharmacists to obtain ACPE credit hours required for license renewal.

In addition to the many benefits offered through virtual conferences, there are also some limitations. Many learners enjoy the personal element that comes with an in-person presentation. Although the use of webcams is available for virtual conferences, some of this human element may still be lost. Additionally, in-person conferences provide professional networking opportunities, which are not as readily available through virtual conferences.

The majority of presentations for this conference were related to ambulatory care, which is to be expected in a VHA setting, given the multitude of outpatient clinics in the VHA health system. Of ambulatory care presentations, most participants attended presentations that focused on diabetes or cardiology (day 1 of the conference).

However, some technology difficulties occurred on the first day of the conference, which might explain the decreased participation on subsequent days. Afternoon hours were selected as the time to host the virtual conference, because it was believed this would increase the opportunity for participation, as several pharmacists were expected to be unavailable in the morning hours due to increased workload and/or clinical responsibilities.

A follow-up questionnaire was available to participants after the conference. The majority of responses received indicated positive feedback in regards to the ease of conference participation, applicability of information gained to specific facilities, as well as availability of ACPE CE hours. In the future, the intent is to expand the VISN 11 Virtual Pharmacy Resident Conference to also include CE credit for pharmacy technicians, which requires some additional steps in the ACPE credit approval process. Also, presentations will be recorded and available either live or on-demand for CE credit.

Conclusion

The VISN 11 Virtual Pharmacy Resident Conference was an innovative, educational program that allowed pharmacy residents to meet the ASHP requirement to present residency research at an annual conference, while also providing the opportunity for pharmacists to have a more encompassing understanding of research taking place within the VISN and meet their CE requirements.

The virtual conference format may be applied to any multisite health system where members from pharmacy services would benefit from the presentations. Last, pharmacy residents will gain new techniques and experience in developing and delivering a virtual presentation, which will prove be a useful skill set for the future.

Author Disclosures
The authors report no actual or potential conflicts of interest with regard to this article.

Disclaimer
The opinions expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of Federal Practitioner, Frontline Medical Communications Inc., the U.S. Government, or any of its agencies. This article may discuss unlabeled or investigational use of certain drugs. Please review the complete prescribing information for specific drugs or drug combinations—including indications, contraindications, warnings, and adverse effects—before administering pharmacologic therapy to patients.