University of Florida

Below are two sets of core competencies to be attained by students in our program, including research focused and discipline focused. The first set focuses on research competencies and the second set are competencies for our discipline of Pharmaceutical Outcomes and Policy.

Research Competencies

• Theory: Describe foundation of theory of science.
• Research design: Describe essential elements of experimental, quasi-experimental and observational research designs and use them appropriately to address research questions.
• Principles of measurement: Develop instruments to measure research constructs and establish the reliability and validity of the instrument.
• Inferential statistics: Apply basic and advanced parametric and non-parametric statistical methods, including multivariate statistics; determine the appropriate tests and interpret the results of statistical analyses appropriately.
• Communication of research results: Select appropriate means to present research results to target audiences and effectively communicate those results.
• Evaluation of research: Write critical reviews of research reports, manuscripts, and proposals.
• Principles of research ethics: Apply ethical principles in use of human subjects in research.
  

Disciplinary Competencies

• Health care organization in the US: Describe issues related to organization, production, consumption, reimbursement, financing, access to, and delivery of health care in the United States.
• The medication use system: Describe the medication use system and its limitations; concepts involved in continuous quality improvement, pharmaceutical care, and other systems approaches to improving drug use.
• The drug product: Describe issues related to development, distribution, and evaluation of the drug product: Describe the process of drug development; the evaluation of drug efficacy, effectiveness, safety and costs and regulatory and public policy related to drug approval and withdrawal.
• Behavior of individuals in the medication use system: Examine patient and provider behavior within the medications use process; understand key ethical issues affecting relationships between providers and patients, and describe the role of theory in understanding the use of drugs in society.