Hampton University’s School of Pharmacy has lost its accreditation, according to a report from the Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education’s board of directors.
The report is from the board’s January meeting and shows “accreditation withdrawn” for Hampton University’s Doctor of Pharmacy Program in regards to standards related to “progression” and “educational outcomes.”
The decision is appealable to which a university spokesperson said in an emailed statement, Anand Iyer, the dean of Hampton’s School of Pharmacy, has indicated he will pursue.
“The Hampton University School of Pharmacy is the No. 1 producer of African-American pharmacists in Virginia and has sustained accreditation for more than a decade,” according to the statement.
According to the council’s handbook on standards, Hampton’s School of Pharmacy hasn’t been fully able to “develop, resource, and implement a plan to assess attainment of educational outcomes to ensure that graduates are prepared to enter practice.”
Also according to the handbook, students must have graduated from an ACPE accredited school in order to take the North American Pharmacist Licensure Examination (NAPLEX) which upon passing allows them to apply for state licensing.
This requires administrators to submit to the board and implement a “teach-out” plan to allow currently enrolled students in graduating classes through 2023 be covered by an accredited status.
The school received an eight-year accreditation in 2015 but has been on probation since 2017 for reasons regarding students’ “progression rates” and performance on the NAPLEX, Iyer wrote in an August 2017 letter.
Iyer also stated in his letter the administration had been working closely with the faculty since 2015 to implement comprehensive steps with the intention to ensure “the class of 2018 and beyond will be in full compliance with the required standards.”
In November 2017, the probationary period was extended, setting a January 2019 deadline for the university to be in full compliance with ACPE standards.
In 2017, the NAPLEX passing rate for Hampton University students attempting the exam for the first time was less than 60 percent compared to the national average of nearly 90 percent of ACPE accredited school graduates who passed the exam that year.
Hampton University students who passed the exam would increase to more than 70 percent in 2018 but again fell short to the year’s national average (90 percent), according to the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy. The association hasn’t yet published NAPLEX passing rates for 2019 on their site.
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