Researchers Start Work on a Pharmacy Program Quality Metric to Rival USNWR

[297point1]

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Fed up with the USNWR rankings, four researchers have begun the process of establishing a new quality ranking for pharmacy programs. The first step was to perform a Delphi process survey of 30 pharmacy school Deans, with balanced representation from public and private schools.

Metrics that were identified by the Deans panel as items considered important quality measures include:

Curriculum: Items specific to the curriculum of the program.
Placement: Metrics involving the placement of students following graduation.
Stakeholder Feedback: Quantitative and qualitative feedback from students, faculty, staff, alumni and others regarding the quality of the school of pharmacy.
Scholarship: Metrics involving scholarly activity and extramural funding.
Student Success: Student performance while enrolled in the school of pharmacy.
Testing: Standardized testing conducted at various levels including tests required for a pharmacist license.
Recruitment: Metrics related to the recruitment of students, faculty, staff, and external partners
Operational: Metrics pertaining to the basic function and operations of a school of pharmacy.
Service: Metrics related to service activities by students, faculty, staff, and alumni of the school.

The full study is here: An Error Occurred Setting Your User Cookie

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It sounds like many of the same ideas that have been offered by SDN members over the years (except for tuition/total cost to degree, which isn't a quality measure per se). Operationalizing some of these metrics would be challenging (for example, "Student Success" is already required by ACPE to be published on school websites, but ACPE provides no definition for what that means and what it published by schools is all over the place; I would foresee similar issues for the metrics for curriculum, operational, and service). Nonetheless, for haters of the USNWR rankings, this represents a sign that something more robust might be around the corner in a few years.

 

[WVUPharm2007]

NAPLEX test scores, job placement, and student cost are all that matter. That's the quality of the product, how popular the product sells, and how much it cost to make the product. Everything else is irrelevant. 2 of 3 is better than I thought they'd throw out there. But with a bunch of nonsense that doesn't matter on the side, naturally. Pharmacy education in a nutshell, really.

I see that cost isn't even a metric, of course. Unless that's included in the "operational" metric. Which it probably isn't. And who gives two ****s about service activities. If they make that a metric, you'll have the schools requiring community service hours where the kids will do a half-assed job and waste everyone's time. But I see plenty of opportunities for the academia people to pad the three metrics that actually matter. So this ranking will probably be useless, too.

 

[Gombrich12]

I would like to see granular data on incoming classes including GPA/PCAT. Then I would want to see job outcomes 1 year out of school broken down by full/part time, RPh license required/non-required, setting, and salary. NAPLEX/MPJE is already reported, I think average debt is too, but it may be hard to find.

 

[lord999]

Whatever. For a state school, the best measure is economic contribution to the state from the graduates, with graduates moving away, not working, or failing out counting against the school. I think anyone stupid enough to believe those rankings without understanding deserves the fate they get (hope they get a school that doesn't give a damn about the undergraduate division where the most important part of the rankings is how your peers perceive your institution as of right now). No one cares about an internally developed measure, it is just as arbitrary.

Granular data is offered through ACPE already for entering admissions statistics. Job outcomes and D/E ratios at the 1 and 5 year timeframe are reported to the USDoE as part of the requirement for Regional Accreditation and for the new student loan auditing. Pharmacy never pays attention to the 1 year, the 5 year is instructive.

 

[lord999]

Fed up with the USNWR rankings, four researchers have begun the process of establishing a new quality ranking for pharmacy programs. The first step was to perform a Delphi process survey of 30 pharmacy school Deans, with balanced representation from public and private schools.

Metrics that were identified by the Deans panel as items considered important quality measures include:

Curriculum: Items specific to the curriculum of the program.
Placement: Metrics involving the placement of students following graduation.
Stakeholder Feedback: Quantitative and qualitative feedback from students, faculty, staff, alumni and others regarding the quality of the school of pharmacy.
Scholarship: Metrics involving scholarly activity and extramural funding.
Student Success: Student performance while enrolled in the school of pharmacy.
Testing: Standardized testing conducted at various levels including tests required for a pharmacist license.
Recruitment: Metrics related to the recruitment of students, faculty, staff, and external partners
Operational: Metrics pertaining to the basic function and operations of a school of pharmacy.
Service: Metrics related to service activities by students, faculty, staff, and alumni of the school.

The full study is here: An Error Occurred Setting Your User Cookie

***

It sounds like many of the same ideas that have been offered by SDN members over the years (except for tuition/total cost to degree, which isn't a quality measure per se). Operationalizing some of these metrics would be challenging (for example, "Student Success" is already required by ACPE to be published on school websites, but ACPE provides no definition for what that means and what it published by schools is all over the place; I would foresee similar issues for the metrics for curriculum, operational, and service). Nonetheless, for haters of the USNWR rankings, this represents a sign that something more robust might be around the corner in a few years.

Specifically:

Curriculum: How could the curriculum NOT conform to ACPE standards? Are we talking about the pharmacognosy field class at Ole Miss diversity or the substance abuse curriculum at Utah here?
Placement: Gamed, DoE has actually went after several schools on this already.
Stakeholder Feedback: Gamed, who isn't going to say their alma mater is good?
Scholarship: Sucks to be a nonresearch school, for Research I institutions, it heavily depends on whether or not there is an attached medical school that subsumes certain departments. This screws schools like UT Austin who have outstanding research performance per faculty member, but does not have an attached medical school which limits certain aspects.
Student Success: Gamed
Testing: ACPE mandated, how could it be different?
Recruitment: Fair enough
Operational: ACPE mandated structure, how could it be different?
Service: Heavily gamed, and would industry work count, because if it does, Rutgers does more "service" than the next 15 pharmacy schools combined, that's just how dominant they are at the industrial research collaborations.

I expect better of our faculty on this matter. Many of these criteria have to be more or less uniform due to accreditation standards, a couple of these are more structural in nature (Scholarship, Service), and others are heavily subjective (Student Success, Stakeholder Feedback, and some aspects of Testing and Operational).

My question is, to people who know the business, what would rankings really do in terms of student desired outcomes? I never look at pharmacy school rankings to make hiring or residency decisions (although I do have prejudices that certain pharmacy schools tend to send bad candidates as a general rule), and I doubt most non-federal workplaces bother to actually examine the transcript besides verifying it exists and no particular problems. What I wish is for a ranking system that gives prospective candidates a good idea of what sort of things that school is good at in terms of preparation and operating philosophy.