Patients value the interpersonal aspects of their health care experiences. However, faced with multiple resource demands, primary care practices may question the value of collecting and acting upon survey data that measure patients’ experiences of care. The Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (CAHPS) suite of surveys and quality improvement tools supports the systematic coll...

Clinical pharmacologists (-kinetists) are charged with the obligation to quantify dose-response relationships (pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics) of clinically useful drugs. Clinical pharmacokinetic studies are performed to determine the rational use of medicines according to patient characteristics, such as disease and genotype of drug metabolizing enzymes (transporters), and predict the i...

This paper reports on the completion of the first stage of research of a pilot study undertaken in collaboration by 3 Australian universities. The pilot involves the development of a virtual pharmacy patient (VPP) as a study of its effects on student learning when it is used as a formative assessment tool for pharmacy students in interviewing and diagnosing a patient. The design criteria that h...