“There’s No Touching in Pharmacy”: Training Pharmacists for Australia’s First Pharmacist Immunization Pilot
Bibliographic record
Abstract
ABSTRACT Background: Vaccination is a safe, efficient, and cost-effective means of preventing, controlling, and eradicating many life-threatening infections and diseases. Globally, the World Health Organization estimates that vaccination saves between 2 million and 3 million lives annually. However, low immunization rates are a significant public health concern. Individual factors, along with the vaccination process and system, have been reported as perceived barriers and challenges to immunization. Lack of time, on the part of both health care professionals and patients, has also been reported as a key factor influencing patterns of immunization. Despite the accessibility of pharmacists in community pharmacies in Australia, and initiatives by other countries to introduce pharmacist vaccination services, pharmacists in Australia had not previously delivered this service. The Queensland Pharmacist Immunisation Pilot (QPIP), initially implemented for the 2014 influenza season and later expanded, as QPIP2, to include other vaccines, allowed Australian pharmacists to vaccinate for the first time. Objectives: To develop, implement, and evaluate a training program for pharmacists undertaking vaccination services in community pharmacies in Australia. Methods: Background content was developed and delivered through 2 online modules. Pharmacists were required to successfully answer a series of multiple-choice questions related to the background reading before attending a face-to-face workshop. The workshop provided practical training in injection skills and anaphylaxis management. Participants were also asked to evaluate the training program. Results: Of the 339 pharmacists who completed the training program, 286 (84%) provided an evaluation. Participants were satisfied with the training, as indicated by consistently high scores on the “overall satisfaction” question (mean 4.65/5 for the QPIP and QPIP2 training combined). Participants described the background reading as relevant to their practice and stated that it met their expectations. They also valued the opportunity to practise injections on each other during the face-to-face workshop, and this aspect was noted as a key component of the training. Conclusions: QPIP demonstrated that a pharmacist-specific training program could produce competent and confident immunizers and could be used to “retrofit” the profession, to facilitate delivery of vaccination services in Australia. RÉSUMÉ Contexte : La vaccination est un moyen sécuritaire et efficient de prévenir, d’endiguer et d’éradiquer bon nombre d’infections et de maladies potentiellement mortelles. L’Organisation mondiale de la santé estime que, dans le monde, la vaccination permet de sauver entre 2 millions et 3 millions de vies par année. Cependant, les faibles taux d’immunisation représentent un enjeu de santé publique important. On a noté que des facteurs individuels ainsi que le processus et le système de vaccination sont perçus comme des obstacles à l’immunisation. Le manque de temps, tant de la part des professionnels de la santé que des patients, a aussi été présenté comme un facteur clé influençant les schémas d’immunisation. Malgré la disponibilité de pharmaciens dans les pharmacies communautaires en Australie et les initiatives lancées par d’autres pays pour mettre en place des services de vaccination offerts par les pharmaciens, les pharmaciens en Australie n’avaient pas prodigué ce service auparavant. L’étude Queensland Pharmacist Immunisation Pilot (QPIP), d’abord mise en place pour la saison de la grippe de 2014, puis reconduite en une version bonifiée nommée QPIP2 afin d’inclure d’autres vaccins, a permis aux pharmaciens australiens de vacciner pour la première fois. Objectifs : Élaborer, mettre en place et évaluer un programme de formation pour les pharmaciens qui offrent des services de vaccination dans les pharmacies communautaires en Australie. Méthodes : La matière du programme a été élaborée et offerte sous forme de deux modules en ligne. Les pharmaciens devaient répondre adéquatement à une série de questions à choix multiples portant sur les lectures préparatoires à un atelier en personne. L’atelier offrait une formation pratique sur les techniques d’injection et sur la prise en charge de l’anaphylaxie. On a aussi demandé aux participants d’évaluer le programme de formation. Résultats : Des 339 pharmaciens ayant terminé le programme de formation, 286 (84 %) ont fourni une évaluation. Les participants étaient satisfaits de la formation, comme l’indiquaient des cotes systématiquement élevées à la question concernant la satisfaction globale (moyenne de 4,65 sur 5 pour la formation des études QPIP et QPIP2 prises ensemble). Les participants ont indiqué que les lectures préparatoires étaient pertinentes pour leur pratique et qu’elles répondaient à leurs attentes. Ils ont aussi apprécié l’occasion de s’exercer à faire des injections les uns sur les autres au cours de l’atelier en personne; on a d’ailleurs noté que cet aspect représentait un élément clé de la formation. Conclusions : L’étude QPIP a permis de constater qu’un programme de formation destiné aux pharmaciens pouvait produire des vaccinateurs compétents et sûrs d’eux et qu’il pouvait servir à « moderniser » la profession afin de faciliter la prestation de services de vaccination en Australie.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.014 | 0.020 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.003 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.002 | 0.003 |
| Open science | 0.003 | 0.006 |
| Research integrity | 0.003 | 0.004 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.010 | 0.002 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".