Essay On Pharmacy Technician

Pharmacy technicians hold important roles and duties in the pharmacy. They are essentially the pharmacist’s aide, but they hold many responsibilities in controlling the drugs. I interviewed a pharmacy technician, Kathy, who worked at Doctor’s Pharmacy, an independent pharmacy. Kathy was kind enough to take some time out of her day to allow me to ask her questions, mainly about her education, roles and experiences she had as a pharmacy technician. Kathy has been a pharmacy technician for almost twenty-six years and has been certified for two years. She said that she never actually intended to be a pharmacy technician, and that she was a cashier for many years before when she was pulled into the pharmacy because she was already experienced

Kathy did not provide me much information about this besides that she uses the computer to put in customer information and when they receive E prescriptions form doctors. Computers are extremely helpful when putting in a prescription because they can automatically put in the Rx Number when you put in the rest of the information and you can also use them to update any customer information or insurance information. There can be many other forms of technology depending on the type of pharmacy it is. In many community pharmacies there can bar code scanners that can be used to compare the NDC numbers from the prescription bottle and the DEA number on the actual prescription to ensure medicine safety. In other pharmacies there can automated counting machines that automatically count large quantities of pills or even a Parata Max, which can fill, dispense and label prescriptions as well as store them in a neat manner. In hospital pharmacies, there can be a Pyxis machine where the medicine is generally neatly stored and available to the nurses. The Pyxis machine helps ensure medicine safety in a hospital pharmacy because only nurse’s and other health care professionals that work in that hospital can use the machine because the machine will only work and open with their fingerprint. Technology in pharmacies help speed up the filling, dispensing and storing process accurately, which can help ensure patient medicine safety, but since technology can easily have problems or make mistakes, all medicine that was used by any of these forms of technology should be double