On behalf of the Connecticut Pharmacists Association (CPA) Education Committee, thank you for joining our speaker faculty. Regardless of the practice setting or field of work that brought you to our continuing education program, your knowledge, skillset and insight plays a significant role in helping CPA fulfill its mission of advancing the practice of pharmacy in Connecticut and beyond.
As you develop your presentation, there are key materials that are required to comply with the Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education (ACPE). This guide aims to help assist you with this process. Below is a checklist you can use to keep track of these materials and their corresponding deadlines.
| Title and learning objectives for pharmacists and pharmacy technicians | Due 1 week upon accepting speaker invitation | |
| Signed Faculty Disclosure of Integrity and Independence Form | Due 1 week upon accepting speaker invitation | |
| Brief bio and headshot (for marketing materials) | Due 1 week upon accepting speaker invitation | |
| Learning Assessment Quiz | Due 1 week upon accepting speaker invitation | |
| PowerPoint recording with embedded interactive activities & copy of PPT slides | Due 2 weeks prior to the presentation date | |
| 10-question post-assessment quiz with rationales stated for correct and incorrect answers | Due 2 weeks prior to the presentation date |
You may also download and print this form, then email it to lcapobianco@ctpharmacists.org
Summary of Required Materials
Effective January 2023, all speaker faculty must adhere to ACPE’s new Standards for Integrity and Independence.
In order to participate as a person who will be able to control the educational content of this accredited CE activity, we ask that you disclose all financial relationships with any ineligible companies that you have had over the past 24 months. We define ineligible companies as those whose primary business is producing, marketing, selling, re-selling, or distributing healthcare products used by or on patients. There is no minimum financial threshold; you must disclose all financial relationships, regardless of the amount, with ineligible companies. Preceptors of any resident/fellow presenters must also sign the same form, and can designate their role as “Content Specialist.”
If there is a conflict of interest, this must be resolved prior to the presentation, which may include review from CPA staff and the CPA Education Committee.
As required by ACPE, every presentation must include a financial disclosure slide at the beginning, and all speakers must announce at the beginning if they have (or do not have) a conflict. If a conflict existed, speakers must include a statement that all conflicts were resolved. Fellow/resident presenters also must include the same information about conflict and resolution as above for each preceptor mentor.
An important note about off-label use: ACPE requires speakers to indicate either on a slide or verbally, when discussing off-label use of a medication or device. Education materials must not include commercial advertising, logos or product-group messages.
Guidance for Ensuring that Clinical Content is Valid
As an important contributor to our accredited education, we would like to enlist your help to ensure that educational content is fair and balanced, and that any clinical content presented supports safe, effective patient care. This includes the expectations that:
- All recommendations for patient care in accredited continuing education must be based on current science, evidence, and clinical reasoning, while giving a fair and balanced view of diagnostic and therapeutic options.
- All scientific research referred to, reported, or used in accredited education in support or justification of a patient care recommendation must conform to the generally accepted standards of experimental design, data collection, analysis, and interpretation.
- Although accredited continuing education is an appropriate place to discuss, debate, and explore new and evolving topics, these areas need to be clearly identified as such within the program and individual presentations. It is the responsibility of accredited providers to facilitate engagement with these topics without advocating for, or promoting, practices that are not, or not yet adequately based on current science, evidence, and clinical reasoning.
- Content cannot be included in accredited education if it advocates for unscientific approaches to diagnosis or therapy, or if the education promotes recommendations, treatment, or manners of practicing healthcare that are determined to have risks or dangers that outweigh the benefits or are known to be ineffective in the treatment of patients.
These expectations are drawn from the Standards for Integrity and Independence in Accredited Continuing Education. Please consider using these strategies to help us support the development of valid, high-quality education.
Consider using the following best practices when presenting clinical content in accredited CE:
- Clearly describe the level of evidence on which the presentation is based and provide enough information about data (study dates, design, etc.) to enable learners to assess research validity.
- Ensure that, if there is a range of evidence, that the credible sources cited present a balanced view of the evidence.
- If clinical recommendations will be made, include balanced information on all available therapeutic options.
- Address any potential risks or adverse effects that could be caused with any clinical recommendations.
Although accredited CE is an appropriate place to discuss, debate, and explore new and evolving topics, presenting topics or treatments with a lower (or absent) evidence base should include the following strategies:
- Facilitate engagement with these topics without advocating for, or promoting, practices that are not, or not yet, adequately based on current science, evidence, and clinical reasoning.
- Construct the activity as a debate or dialogue. Identify other faculty who represent a range of opinions and perspectives; presentations should include a balanced, objective view of research and treatment options.
- Teach about the merits and limitations of a therapeutic or diagnostic approach rather than how to use it.
- Identify content that has not been accepted as scientifically meritorious by regulatory and other authorities, or when the material has not been included in scientifically accepted guidelines or published in journals with national or international stature.
- Clearly communicate the learning goals for the activity to learners (e.g., “This activity will teach you about how your patients may be using XX therapy and how to answer their questions. It will not teach you how to administer XX therapy”).
Note: One strategy to ensure the clinical content validity of accredited continuing education is to allow external (peer) review by persons with appropriate clinical expertise and no relevant financial relationships with ineligible companies. The questions in the following form direct reviewers to share feedback about each of the requirements that comprise Guideline 5.1 in the Standards for Integrity and Independence.
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
What would you like pharmacist and pharmacy technician learners to accomplish after your presentation? What are the key educational goals they should apply to their practice? Develop 3-5 objectives (for pharmacists and technicians) that are measurable, specific and reflect the relationship of your presentation topic to contemporary pharmacy practice. A few tips to keep in mind:
Aim for the important: Focus your objectives on what you want the participant to be able to do after they complete the program. Your objectives should define major, not minor, knowledge.
Objectives should be supported by content: Do not write an objective for something you are not going to present.
Define expected participant behavior: Objectives should define the anticipated performance of the participant as a result of attending the program.
Write measurable objectives that incorporate the appropriate verbs based on the activity type of your presentation: knowledge-based or application-based.
Avoid non-measurable verbs: understand, learn, behave, explore, know, believe, appreciate, perceive, realize, enjoy
Utilize Bloom’s Taxonomy: Bloom’s taxonomy is a set of three hierarchical models used to classify educational learning objectives into levels of complexity and specificity. The three lists cover the learning objectives in cognitive, affective and sensory domains.
CPE Activity Definitions:
- Knowledge-based: primarily structured to transmit knowledge (facts), which must be evidence-based as accepted in the literature. The minimum credit for these types of activities is 15 minutes or 0.25 contact hour.
- Application-based: primarily structured to apply the information learned in the time frame allotted. The information must be evidence-based as accepted in the literature. The minimum credit for these activities is 60 minutes or one contact hour.
Please refer to this chart to utilize the appropriate verbs based on the activity type of your presentation. The Learning Objectives Toolkit also is a great resource to assist you with this process.
ASSESSMENT OF LEARNING AND INTERACTIVE LEARNING
Interactive learning is not only an ACPE accreditation requirement, but also is paramount to ensuring audience engagement. From poll questions to patient cases to role play, there are a variety of interactive teaching methods you can utilize in your presentation to yield stronger learning outcomes among attendees—an achievement that supports your professional development as a presenter.
Educational research consistently shows that adults learn best from interactions between presenters and learners, role-playing and peer-to-peer dialogue. Your interactive learning activities will encourage attendees to reflect on and apply the material presented.
An integral part of these interactive learning activities will be a 5-question learning assessment quiz to to help participants objectively determine what they have and have not learned. The format can be a combination of multiple choice questions, True/False, etc. Each question must match the level of your activity (i.e. knowledge-based, application-based, etc.) and should address your learning objectives. This assessment quiz should be integrated into your presentation. This assessment must be submitted along with your signed forms and learning objectives.
During your presentation, CPA also strongly recommends incorporating other interactive learning activities. Please see examples below:
- Audience Polls (to be used via audience response systems like Zoom and Poll Everywhere)
- Patient cases/case studies
- Team competition or games
- Dynamic discussion
- Small break-out sessions
- Reflective questions
- Freewrite with sharing
PowerPoint Presentation
As part of our live webinar format, CPA as speakers to pre-record a 45 to 50-minute presentation in PowerPoint prior to the date of the program. This recording (along with a copy of your PowerPoint slides) is due two weeks prior to the date of the program and will be made available to learners at that time. CPA will broadcast your recording live on the day of the webinar, and your presentation will conclude with a live, 10-minute Q&A session with the audience.
Recording a video presentation is easy – all you need is a copy of your presentation, a webcam and a microphone. A well-lit, quiet location to record your video is a bonus.
The following resources describe how to record directly in PowerPoint [link; 6m44s] or by using Zoom [link; 1m35s]. If you record in PowerPoint, files must be exported and saved with a resolution of HD (720P). Full or Ultra HD must not be used.
When your recording is complete, please export the file as an MPEG-4 video and use Full HD (1080p) video quality (or the next highest quality available). Below are some helpful links to get you started:
- How to record a slide show with narration and slide timings
- How to turn your presentation into a video
If your recording is too large to attach to an e-mail, please send the file via Google Drive or Dropbox, so CPA staff can easily download it from there.
An important tip to keep in mind: When incorporating poll questions into your recording, please pause for about 30 seconds before revealing the correct answer to the audience—this will ensure a smoother flow of the live broadcast of your presentation. After revealing the correct answer, please provide learners with a rationale (whether it’s verbally in the recording or through the Zoom chat box).
EDUCATIONAL MATERIALS
As an ACPE-accredited provider, CPA encourages speakers to provide educational materials that will enhance learners’ understanding of the content presented and foster application to pharmacy practice, such as additional readings, communication tools and decision-making tools. A few examples are highlighted below:
HOMESTUDY LEARNING ASSESSMENT
After the live broadcast of your presentation, your recording will be repurposed into a homestudy CE program, housed in CPA’s On-Demand Library—a resource that is available to pharmacists and pharmacy technicians across the country.
In preparation for the homestudy, a 10-question learning assessment is required to allow homestudy learners to evaluate their achievement of your presentation’s learning objectives. Questions can take multiple formats: short answer, True/False, multiple choice, etc. The learning assessment is due the same day as your PowerPoint recording.
An important tip: Assessment questions should match your learning objectives, and there should be at least one question for each objective. Each question also should contain a rationale (a brief explanation containing 3-5 sentences) for both correct and incorrect answers, as required by ACPE.
Why are rationales important to advancing the practice of pharmacy? Providing learners with a rationale for correct and incorrect answers fosters more learning, thereby helping pharmacists and pharmacy technicians close their gaps in knowledge and/or application of the topic presented. Whether it’s referring them back to a patient case in your presentation or a practice guideline, there are simple yet effective ways to guide learners through rationales.
Any questions regarding the Faculty Guide as outlined above should be addressed to:
Lisa Capobianco
Vice President, Operations
Connecticut Pharmacists Association
lcapobianco@ctpharmacists.org
(860) 563-4619