STRENGHTENING THE HEALTH ECONOMICS & OUTCOMES RESEARCH COMPONENT OF THE PHILIPPINE BS PHARMACY CURRICULUM

The Commission on Higher Education (CHED) in the Philippines in cooperation with the Philippine Association of the Colleges of Pharmacy (PACOP) gave the draft of the CHED Memorandum Order (CMO) on the Policies Standards and Guidelines for Pharmacy Education last May 22, 2018 to the different schools of Pharmacy in the Philippines. This is still the latest update on the tentative curriculum of the 4-year BS Pharmacy program to date. This draft was made possible after a series of general assembly of the different pharmacy schools in the country and stake holders consultations in different practice areas, this was headed by the PACOP President, Prof. Dr. Aleth Therese L. Dacanay of the University of Santo Tomas (UST) with the guidance of the Board of Pharmacy, CHED. The revision of the curriculum includes addition of 2 units of Health Technology Assessment and Health Policy (with Pharmacoeconomics) at the 2^nd semester of the 3^rd year of the program which is not part of the old BS Pharmacy curriculum – CHED CMO 3 series of 2006.

Among all the subjects though – old, new and revised in the curriculum draft, it is only the Health Technology Assessment and Health Policy (with Pharmacoeconomics) subject that does not have any syllabus draft. Other subjects in the latest draft that supports HEOR are Public Health Pharmacy (with Pharmacoepidemiology) that weighs 3 units, Pharmaceutical Marketing and Entrepreneurship that weighs 2 units and Social and Administrative Pharmacy that weighs a unit. Public Health Pharmacy (with Pharmacoepidemiology) includes topics on basic epidemiology, Pharmacists immunization and local health delivery system. Pharmaceutical Marketing and Entrepreneurship includes topics on healthcare as business, basic marketing and its management and community pharmacy entrepreneurship focus. Social and Administrative Pharmacy includes topics on sociology as related to pharmacy, managed care and a basic research on the subject matter.

The current draft is a revision from the previously proposed draft converting the 4-year BS Pharmacy program to a 5-year BS Pharmacy program. This move to increase the college education of pharmacists by 1 year was contradicted by many schools of pharmacy as there was a fear of losing many enrollees especially to other courses which was eventually heard. Although an unpublished study confirmed the support of professional pharmacists to increase the curriculum to 5 years. The neighboring countries in Asia are already updating the curriculum to 5 years. In the Philippines though, the trend is more on ladderized, which means that after completion of a 4-year BS Pharmacy program, a student may proceed to a 5^th year to complete a year of specialization in clinical pharmacy to finish a 5-year BS Clinical Pharmacy program. Some schools like Centro Escolar University in Makati gives the option of further ladderizing the education to a 6-year PharmD course adding another year from the 5-year BS Clinical Pharmacy program. In the 5-year program, essential courses supporting HEOR are already added like Pharmacoeconomics and Health Administration and Management but it wasn’t until the current updated draft that a dedicated program for HTA is added to the 4-year BS Pharmacy program. A separate CHED CMO for internship is said to be released in the future for the new curriculum but it is yet to be determined if there will be more HEOR courses added.