Global Development of Pharmacy Education

Pharmacists can influence health outcomes and public health in a variety of ways. Pharmacists in community, hospital, and other settings promote cost-effective use of medicines, reduce morbidity and mortality, reduce avoidable hospital admissions, reduce medication errors, improve rational use and prescribing of medicines, and increase access to healthcare and medicines, particularly for underserved populations [1-11]. Because of their knowledge of medicines and clinical therapeutics, pharmacists are suitably placed for task shifting in health care and could be further trained to undertake functions such as clinical management [5, 6]. Indeed, the underuse of the pharmacy workforce for preventive and treatment-based roles is widely acknowledged [6]. To improve health outcomes, a coordinated and multifaceted effort to advance workforce planning, training and education is needed. As we enter the second decade of the 21st century, pharmacy educators worldwide continue to face a number of pressing issues that threaten the quality of pharmacy education at a time when there are limited resources to address these challenges. While pharmacists have unprecedented opportunities to expand their roles and responsibilities, this unfortunately is a time when there is a global shortage of qualified pharmacist to provide patient care [12].