Linking entrustable professional activities and professional practice skills laboratory modules to reinforce student learning and practice readiness for community introductory pharmacy practice experiences

With the updated Entrustable Professional Activities (EPAs), pharmacy programs must decide how the activities taught in the curriculum can be linked to clinical experiences where level of entrustment should be measured. This commentary describes skills-based activities and assessments implemented for a longitudinal skills lab course to reinforce specific EPAs linked to a Community Introductory Pharmacy Practice Experience (CIPPE). A framework for mapping a skills-based curriculum to EPAs through a backward design model will be discussed. Future direction entails intentionality in modifying the existing CIPPE evaluation tool to reflect level of entrustment of EPAs. Data from CIPPE evaluations may be used to inform necessary curricular changes to ensure students are learning information to achieve the expected level on the entrustment scale.