What is the summative assessment process, and who assesses my portfolio?
Advanced Pharmacist Competency Committees (APCCs) are based on the concept of clinical competency committees, which are recognised in the literature as an effective approach to reaching final decisions on individuals’ progression through a programmatic approach to learning and assessment.
APCC assessors will independently undertake a holistic review of the individual’s portfolio content including, but not limited to, supervised learning event feedback, patient surveys, multi-source feedback, other evidence formats, action plans, reflective accounts mentor reports. The APCC will then have a group discussion to agree if the curriculum requirements have been met. This may be both the core and specialist outcomes in a single assessment, or the separate assessment of the specialist outcomes.
The evidence will be assessed directly against the curriculum outcomes, using the descriptors to guide the assessment only. There will be no additional marking scheme or framework. The number of outcomes assessed will depend on whether the candidate is submitting for core and/or specialist credentialing simultaneously or separately.
For pharmacists who are submitting the two critical care domains in addition to the five core advanced domains, the APCC will consist of at least three panel members fulfilling the following roles:
- Two advanced pharmacists in critical care or one advanced pharmacist in critical care and one advanced critical care professional (e.g. doctor, ACCP).
- An assessor with appropriate research expertise.
- An assessor with appropriate educational expertise.
Each assessor will review the portfolio and judge whether the candidate has met the standard for each of the two critical care domains and the five core advanced domains.
For a pharmacist who has already credentialed as ‘Core Advanced’ and is submitting the two critical care domains alone, the assessment will be undertaken by an APCC which will consist of at least two panel members that fulfil the following roles:
- Two advanced pharmacists in critical care or one advanced pharmacist in critical care and one advanced critical care professional (e.g. doctor, ACCP).
Each assessor will review the portfolio and judge whether the candidate has met the standard for each of the two critical care domains. If the two assessors reach a different decision, a review meeting will be held. If a consensus is not reached from the review meeting, then the portfolio will be reviewed by a third assessor.
APCCs will be chaired by a trained chair, who is likely to be one of the panel members. If not, it will be a trained independent chair.