ACPE is closely monitoring the information emerging regarding the spread and scale of the COVID-19 virus and its potential impact on ACPE accredited and ACPE certified pharmacy degree programs and students, accredited continuing pharmacy education providers, and accredited technician education and training programs.
ACPE-accredited or certified programs are receiving advisories from their institutions and are in the process of planning and making decisions on how best to respond to the impact of COVID-19. As this pandemic is a fluid situation, programs may need to make decisions to provide coursework or supervised practice experiences differently than has traditionally been offered. During the pandemic, decisions to move coursework online or provide alternative supervised practice experiences are made at the discretion of the program, as long as the program meets the expectations set by ACPE Accreditation Standards 2016, or the ACPE Certification Quality Criteria as applicable to your program. Please contact the appropriate college or school official of the program who can address your specific questions. ACPE has and will continue to provide guidance to all pharmacy programs to help them work through the curricular issues related to the pandemic.
With regard to continuing pharmacy education, if providers need to repurpose and/or add different formats of the CE activities due to cancellations, ACPE is waiving the policy of submission of CPE activities in the Provider Web Tool 14 days prior to the initial release date until further notice. As a friendly reminder, ACPE defines live CE as “Live interaction between the speaker and audience.” In addition, many providers would like to plan and conduct CE activities related to the coronavirus and are requesting to submit these activities in ACPE’s Provider Web Tool within 14 days of the release date. ACPE will waive this policy to accommodate the urgency of education related to the coronavirus. We have added Coronavirus and COVID-19 as available keywords to consider. Other keywords, if applicable, that may be used are Infectious Disease, Viral Infections, Antivirals.
A list of coronavirus-related content available for pharmacists and pharmacy technicians can be found here.
ASHP/ACPE-accredited technician education and training programs are also receiving advisories from their institutions. During the pandemic, decisions to move coursework online or provide alternative supervised practice experiences, as long as the program meets the boundaries set by the ASHP/ACPE Accreditation Standards for Pharmacy Technician Education and Training Programs, as applicable to your program, are reviewed on a case-by-case basis by a representative from ASHP. Please contact the Accreditation Services Office at ASHP, Lisa S. Lifshin, RPH, Senior Director of Pharmacy Technician Accreditation and Residency Services,
llifshin@ashp.org, to address your specific questions.
