The American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy, with support from Merck & Co., Inc., created the Academic-Practice Partnership Initiative (APPI) in 2004 to identify strategies and develop resources to increase capacity and enhance quality, efficiency and effectiveness of professional experience programs. The purpose of this continuing initiative is to improve pharmacy education and practice by: enhancing opportunities for pharmacists to become partners of schools and colleges of pharmacy; enabling colleges and schools of pharmacy in their efforts to assist practitioners and organizations to advance patient care services; and to assist administrators at colleges and schools as well as in pharmacy organizations to enhance experiential education. Resources in the Academic-Practice Partnership Initiative include the Advanced Practice Experience Site Profiling System (APESPS) and are available at www.aacp.org under the Resources tab.Back to the top
The Advanced Practice Experience Site Profiling System (APESPS) is a toolkit designed for use by college or school of pharmacy professional experience program directors to identify, document and profile models of exemplary experiential education practice sites exhibiting the APPI-developed quality criteria. The system contains: the “Exemplary Pharmacy Practice Experiential Site” Criteria (APPI quality criteria) developed to identify the essential elements deemed necessary for an exemplary pharmacy practice site and preceptor, a data collection worksheet to capture site and preceptor-specific information, and an assessment instrument for preceptor evaluation to be used by the preceptor, peers and students. Back to the top
The American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy (AACP) has established this award program under the APPI umbrella as an opportunity for colleges and schools of pharmacy and their pharmacy practice partners to acknowledge achieving excellence in academic-practice partnerships for exemplary experiential education. This award program recognizes the contributions of the faculty/administrators of colleges/schools of pharmacy and the pharmacist practitioner educators and administrators who are their practice partners in successfully conducting and supporting quality experiential education in exemplary patient care clinical teaching environments. Back to the top
By recognizing these successful academic-practice partners and documenting how they demonstrate the APPI quality criteria, they can serve as models for evolving exemplary experiential education. Back to the top
Recognition is based on demonstrating evidence of a successful academic-practice partnership for experiential learning at the Advanced Pharmacy Practice Experience (APPE) level with an exemplary pharmacy practice site. The level of analysis for nomination and recognition is a discrete Advanced Pharmacy Practice Experience (APPE) (i.e., a specific rotation and the primary preceptor) conducted in a site that may offer many rotations with multiple preceptors. The APPE must be conducted in partnership between the nominating academic institution, practice site partner and preceptor.
The award program employs a modified version of the Advanced Practice Experience Site Profiling System (APESPS) for systematic data collection and assessment. The data will be captured and reported in a computer generated tabular and narrative summary for the nomination submission.
Nominations for this award will be evaluated against the APPI quality criteria for advanced pharmacy practice experiences. Sites will be evaluated within the context of their practice environment capacity for meeting the criteria.
Areas of evaluation include:
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The award program is national in scope and up to a maximum of eight (8) awards will be granted in 2008. Award selection will strive for representation of diverse academic institutions, practice environments, partnership models, and geographic regions. Each award will honor the three (3) key members of the academic-practice partnership for a particular Advanced Pharmacy Practice Experience (APPE) rotation. Individuals recognized for each award will include the college/school Nominator (i.e., the professional experience program director), the preceptor and an administrative representative of the practice site partner. Partnerships selected for the award will be announced at the AACP Annual Meeting in Chicago, IL, July 19-23, 2008. Each of these individuals will receive a $1,000 honorarium for professional development and a travel stipend to attend and present their exemplary site practices and successful strategies for partnering at the AACP Interim Meeting in Washington, D.C. in February 2009. The professional experience program director and the preceptor will each receive the AACP Crystal APPLE (Academic Practice Partnerships for Learning Excellence) Award and the practice site will receive an engraved plaque recognizing their achievement.
Partners selected for recognition will be expected to participate in subsequent outreach and education efforts aimed at sharing their successful partnership for exemplary advanced pharmacy practice experience. All nominations for the Award Program become the property of AACP. Publicity may include narrative profiles based on nomination data of those academic-practice partnerships selected for recognition, news articles, press releases and promotional materials. Recognized partnerships will be featured in publications by AACP and U.S. Pharmacist.Back to the top
To inquire about your membership status, contact Angela Edwards.
There is not a limit on the number of nominations an academic institution may submit. However, no college/school, practice partner site, or preceptor will be selected for recognition for more than one award in a given competition cycle.
There is not a limit on how many times a nomination may be resubmitted in future competitions if not selected for the award, however the unique award nomination combination (school/site/preceptor/APPE rotation) once recognized, becomes ineligible for future consideration. An individual preceptor once recognized is ineligible for a period of five years.
Submissions are only accepted through the online nomination system. Incomplete or late submissions will be disqualified. Access to the online system will be denied as of January 28, 2008.
NOTE: Employees of Merck & Company and U.S. Pharmacist are not eligible for consideration in the awards program.Back to the top
An online nomination, data collection and reporting system will be used to submit your nomination to AACP. All of your data will be entered in a web-based survey format. The system will generate a practice site profile, including tables and narrative report, and assessment reports from your entries. This will constitute your nomination submission.
To determine which APPE, practice partner site and preceptor to nominate, nominators should review the APPI quality criteria. The APPI quality criteria are the basis on which all submissions will be evaluated.
To initiate the nomination process, the Nominator must complete and submit a Letter of Intent Form to AACP by January 7, 2008. Once the Letter of Intent is processed, the nominator will be provided with the link to create an account in the system. Once the account information is electronically-submitted, the Nominator will receive an email containing his/her username and password. Once the Nominator has received the username and password, s/he may access the system through the link provided on the AACP Web site.
The online nomination system will be available for data entry November 16, 2007. Nominators are encouraged to begin preliminary work, including review of relevant materials and collecting information for use in the online system, prior to the system launch. It is recommended to plan ahead for data collection and data entry.
For information on the type of data that will be collected and reported in the online system, nominators are encouraged to review the 2007 Crystal APPLE Award Recipient Profiles. The profiles created during the previous award cycle are similar to the summary profile report that will be created from your nomination data. The online data collection form for this award nomination is derived from the APESPS Data Collection Worksheet for Site and Preceptor-specific Information. It has been modified for the nomination process, however the content areas and critical data points remain the same. The Assessment Instrument for Preceptor Evaluation, is the same assessment tool that will be used in the nomination process. Nominators are encouraged to review these tools to familiarize themselves with the scope of information that will be collected in the nomination process.Back to the top
Each nominator must submit a Letter of Intent to AACP no later than 5 p.m. EST Monday, January 7, 2008, via e-mail (mail@aacp.org) or fax (703-836-8982). In the Letter of Intent the Nominator and Dean of the college or school of pharmacy identify the APPE/practice site/preceptor partnership being nominated and attest to eligibility. The endorsement of the Dean of the college or school of pharmacy is required and will be indicated by his/her signature on the letter of intent form. Once AACP has processed the Letter of Intent, the Nominator will be provided with a link to create his/her account in the online system. Letter of Intent Submission FormBack to the top
Practice site data will be recorded using the online data collection tool. The online data collection tool consists of these content areas: site information, preceptor information and academic-practice partnership information. Only the Nominator has access to the data collection tool for data entry via username and password. Print copies are available online to share with the practice site.Back to the top
A site visit is a required element of the nomination process. During the site visit, the Nominator should visit with the Director of Pharmacy Services, owner or manager (and preceptor if not the same person) of the pharmacy. Explain that both site-specific and preceptor-specific information will be gathered. While it would be ideal for all information to be gathered in one visit, this may not be possible. Pilot profile project participants who tested the data collection tool reported at least a half-day visit with pre- and post- work was necessary. Back to the top
The nominator will need to collect contact information for the preceptor’s peers, and students who completed the nominated APPE during calendar year 2007. Peers are considered to be colleagues with whom the preceptor interacts on a regular basis, e.g. health care professionals and staff. A minimum of 3 submitted student assessments and 3 submitted peer assessments are required for nomination submission. A range of 3 to 10 completed assessments in each category is suggested.
All three assessments are part of the online nomination tool. Once the Nominator has initiated the nomination process, s/he will be responsible for adding/designating and managing the Sub-Group users (Preceptor, Student and Peer) associated with his/her Practice Location. Basic profile information will be required: First, Middle and Last Name and email address. Once entered, the system will generate an email requesting these individuals to fill out the online form for the award process. The nominator will have the ability to add individuals to any Sub-Group at any time should a Sub-Group member decline the request. See specific instructions in the online nomination form.
The nominator will be able to view the status of all the assessments. Once completed, the system will create a summary of each user type for inclusion in the award nomination. Assessments may be previewed online. Back to the top
The information entered in the online data collection tool will be reported in a Summary Profile. Data points captured in the data collection tool will be reported mainly as tables, and narrative will be constructed from responses to the open-ended questions found in the tool.
The nominator will have the opportunity to preview the Summary Profile Report before final submission to AACP. Any changes or edits must be made in the data collection tool and may be done anytime prior to the final submission. Once the Nominator is satisfied with the Summary Profile, s/he will submit the complete nomination packet (Data Collection Tool, Photographs of site, Assessment Summaries and the Summary Profile Report) online for award consideration.
The nomination submission deadline is Monday, January 28, 2008.Back to the top
Award selection will strive for representation of diverse academic institutions, practice environments, partnership models and geographic regions.
Nomination review and recommendation for award selection will be made by reviewers in two stages. During the first stage, nomination portfolios will each be reviewed by three (3) independent evaluators including professional experience program faculty, practitioner-educator preceptors, and students. Finalists determined by high scores will be reviewed by a second panel of stakeholder association staff to make the final selections (up to a maximum of 8 awards). Back to the top
Nominators will be notified of the award selection in June 2008. Information regarding special recognition at the AACP Interim Meeting in Washington, D.C., February 2009 and participation in presenting highlights of the winning partnerships will be distributed with the award notification letters.
2008 Crystal APPLE Award Recipients
2008 Crystal APPLE Award Recipient Profiles
2007 Crystal APPLE Award Recipients
2007 Crystal APPLE Award Recipient Profiles
Frequently Asked Questions
Helpful Tips for the Online Nomination Process