Browsing by Subject "maintenance and improving skills"

The development and maintenance of the pharmaceutical workforce's know-how ensure the availability of medicinal consulting and service. Healthcare personnel in Finland are bound by law to uphold and improve their workmanship. Furthermore, a pharmacy owner is legally obliged to keep track of the development of healthcare professional's skills and to ensure the staff's sufficient participation for continuing education (CE). Pharmacists' development and maintenance of professional skills is not linked to preservation of professional competence in Finland. The goal of this study was to get a general view of the development and maintenance of professional skills of pharmacists working in community pharmacies as well as applicaple methods. Additionally, the aim was to determine whether community pharmacists' development of professional skills is systematical. As background material in this thesis, a sub-material of an online study regarding development and maintenance of professional skills was used, which was carried out by the Finnish Pharmacists' Association in September 2013 and it consists of 430 pharmacists' responses who work in community pharmacies. The results show that the methods community pharmacists use to develop and maintain their professional skills are diverse. The recommendation by the authorities is at least three days of CE for one person per year but the majority (83 %) of the participants of this study didn't follow it. Some of the pharmacists develop and maintain their professional skills by attending diligently CE's while the number of pharmacists who do not attend any CE has risen. The number of pharmacists who did not participate in any CE was 26 % in the year prior to this study. The results might point to changes in learning methods or the decline of CE activity. The results of this thesis show that development of professional skills was not systematical in the majority of the pharmacies. An annual personal develompent plan was drawn up in 24 % of the respondents' workplaces and development discussions were had in few. Independent planning, monitoring and evaluation of their own professional skill development were done by 10 % of the pharmacists. The planning of professional skill development was not found to impact CE participation. Development discussions and training schedules that are drawn up in workplaces were found to increase pharmacists' independent planning of their professional skills.