(269) An Early Intervention Approach to Improving Pharmacy Student Success

Objective : To support students’ successful academic progression at the Bill Gatton College of Pharmacy, an early intervention system was implemented in Fall of 2022. This poster describes the process and the preliminary outcomes of the program.

Methods: In January 2022, the college began developing an early intervention process to assist students at risk of receiving a non-passing grade. The Early Intervention Process (EIP) policy and plan were initiated in August of 2022.

EIP Process: 1. Any student earning two non-passing exam grades, in one or across any two courses, prior to the midpoint of the semester was identified for the EIP. 2. The student and Academic Success Specialist completed an individualized Academic Success Plan that included an assessment of strengths and weaknesses, SMART goals and plan for follow-up meetings. 3. The plan was shared with the student’s faculty mentor.

A pre-implementation cohort from Fall 2021 was compared to the initial EIP cohort in Fall 2022, and all P1 through P3 students in the didactic curriculum were included. The pre- and post- cohorts were compared using a Fisher’s exact test.

Results: In the Fall 2021 cohort, prior to EIP implementation, 34 students would have met the EIP inclusion criteria, and 14 appeared before the APC (41.2%). In the Fall 2022 cohort, 24 students were enrolled in the EIP, and 8 students (33.3%) appeared before the APC, demonstrating an absolute reduction of 7.9% and a relative reduction of 19.2% (p < 0.01).

Conclusions: A structured approach to early intervention that includes academic success planning and follow-up can reduce the number of students at risk of academic failure.