National Patient Counseling Competition

What is it?

The National Patient Counseling Competition is an annual event held by APhA to help promote the importance of

counseling in the field of pharmacy. In this event, APhA-ASP members will be given the chance to demonstrate their

ability to counsel a mock patient on a new prescription.

Rules

The competition will take place as follows:

Participants should arrive 10 minutes prior to appointment.
Participants will be lead into a room with a patient’s prescription and a drug reference.
Participants will be given 5 minutes to access Lexi-Comp Online Database. NO OTHER RESOURCES ARE ALLOWED. Participants may take notes so bring a pen.
Participants will then be given 5 minutes to counsel the patient in a separate room. The counseling session will be recorded for judging. When there is only 1 minute remaining, participants will receive a signal. Once the 5 minutes are up, the recording will stop whether or not the participant is finished counseling.
At this point, the participant’s role is finished. The video will be given to judges to decide the winner of local patient counseling competition. The winner from UH Hilo APhA-ASP will be announced in the following weeks and will represent the College of Pharmacy at the National Patient Counseling Competition.

Tips for Success

Create a personal template of the information you would present to a patient. Though you are not allowed to use this template during the actual competition, it will help you quickly find the information you are looking for. Your template can contain room for drug indication, adverse effects, contraindications, etc.
Be familiar with Lexi-Comp. Know where to find the various pieces of information and also know that there is a tablet for Adult Patient Education and Pediatric Patient Education
Ask open ended questions. Instead of asking “Are you Mr. Jones”; ask “What is your name?”
Use layman’s terms. Remember to use patient friendly language. Instead of saying that saying “Lisinopril is indicated for hypertension,” try saying “Lisinopril helps to lower blood pressure.”
Look at the judging criteria so you know what points you should hit.
Dress professionally.
Most importantly: HAVE FUN! This competition will not affect your grade, counseling wrong here will not harm any patients and the only thing that could happen is that you do great and receive prizes.

Deadlines

Resources

NATIONAL PATIENT COUNSELING COMPETITION (NPCC)