HabiliUp^®: a digital tool for the competency reassessment of hospital pharmacy technicians

Periodic competency reassessment of staff working in an Anticancer Drug Preparation Unit (ADPU) is a regulatory requirement established in the French Good Preparation Practices (GPP) and in the French National Authority for Health (Haute Autorité de Santé, HAS) framework for the “Certification of Healthcare Institutions for Quality of Care.”

The aim of this study was to develop and evaluate a computer-based tool enabling simple, practice-oriented and automated competency reassessment of hospital pharmacy technicians (HPTs) working in the ADPU.

A multidisciplinary working group, composed of pharmacists, pharmacy residents and a senior technician, was established to define the competencies requiring reassessment and to design an appropriate tool. An individual competency reassessment approach was selected, based on a question bank including multiple-choice questions (MCQ), videos depicting errors and intentionally incorrect compounding worksheets. An overall assessment was performed at the end of each competency reassessment session to identify acquired competencies and areas for improvement, followed by a systematic debriefing with a pharmacist. A satisfaction questionnaire was developed and administered to HPTs to obtain an initial evaluation of the tool.

The HabiliUp^® software was developed according to these criteria. Individual user profiles were created based on staff members authorization to perform routine tasks. The tool included 62 questions, divided into two modules "Preparation" and "Dispensing" (with 9 subcategories). Questions were randomly assigned during competency reassessment sessions. During the pilot phase, 10 HPTs were evaluated: 6 had been working in the unit for more than 6 months, while 4 were returning to work in the unit after an absence of at least 6 months. The mean score was 64% (±8.5). Mean satisfaction was 4/5 (±0.9), with the perceived difficulty rated as intermediate (3.9/5 ±1.3) and the content considered relevant (4.1/5 ±1.1). The competency reassessment was considered useful (4.7/5±1). The tool was well accepted with the interface considered ergonomic and intuitive (3.9/5±1.3).

HabilUp^® provides a standardized tool to meet GPP requirements. It combines self-assessment with a debriefing conducted by a pharmacist, thereby enabling the identification of areas for improvement and the consolidation of professional knowledge and practices. Further adjustments are required, particularly regarding the wording of some MCQ and the current scoring system, overly stringent. Further developments are underway, including a practical evaluation and the addition of new modules (automated preparations, intrathecal analgesic mixtures,...). Eventually, the tool could be extended to other areas of practice involving HPTs within the hospital pharmacy department as well as to pharmacists.