Class of 2008 Abstract / Objectives: Continuing pharmacy education (CPE) programs are required for pharmacists to maintain licensure and necessary to maintain current clinical knowledge. This study attempts to compare the quality of CPE programs from industry sponsored versus non-industry sponsored sources. Methods: Three CE programs were analyzed by comparison to an established guideline source. Diabetes mellitus was selected as the disease state because there was a recently published and widely accepted guideline document available. Two CPE programs were industry sponsored and one was independent of industry. The American Diabetes Association (ADA) guideline document on the management of type 2 diabetes was used to develop a scoring tool. Each CPE program was evaluated for consistency with the ADA guideline, using the scoring tool. The results were analyzed using the Fisher’s exact test. Also, the number of times that a drug name was mentioned in each program was recorded. Results: There was some discordance between the content of the three CPE programs and the ADA guidelines, but no discernible pattern was seen. There was a statistically significant difference between the non-industry sponsored programs. There were some inconsistencies among the three programs relative to “mentions” of drug names, but again no consistent pattern. Conclusions: This work does not provide convincing evidence of bias among industry-sponsored CPE programs. In retrospect, the choice of the specific CPE programs may have been inappropriate considering the nature of the guideline document and the evaluation tool that was developed from it.

Class of 2014 Abstract / Specific Aims: On April 18, 2007, the Arizona legislature passed the Pharmacy Continuous Quality Assurance (CQA) law, with enforced compliance beginning January 1, 2014. With the lengthy lag time between passage of the law and required compliance with the law, a continuing pharmacy education (CPE) seminar was developed to educate Arizona pharmacy personnel about the new requirements. The CPE seminar was evaluated by assessing changes in participant self-reported knowledge, motivation, and awareness regarding the quality assurance legislation and the CQA process. Methods: The CPE seminar took place at the Arizona Pharmacy Association’s Community Pharmacy Academy Conference. Data were collected using a retrospective pre-assessment/post-assessment questionnaire. Data were analyzed using Wilcoxon Signed-Rank tests with a Boniferroni correction. Demographic information were reported using descriptive statistics. Main Results: The response rate was 70%, with 28 of 40 participants completing the questionnaire. Each of the six self-assessment questionnaire statements showed a statistically significant change from pre to post assessment (p = 0.0005). Conclusion: The results show that the law CPE session positively impacted participant self-assessment of knowledge, awareness, and motivation of quality improvement initiatives and medication errors. Follow-up research is needed to determine what impact this CPE session will have in pharmacy practice.