Pharmacy Technicians Despite popular belief, pharmacy technicians are more than laborers; they are specially trained individuals. Imagine a family member is admitted to the University of South Alabama Hospital with an acute case of pneumonia, which will require oral and intravenous medications. These medications must be precisely prepared and properly delivered. The common perception is that pharmacists prepare medications and technicians simply deliver them. This view of their job is both accurate and inaccurate. Pharmacy technicians are most often seen as the pharmacy’s “delivery-boy”. Technicians are responsible for timely delivery of medications. However, delivery of medications is more than the act of getting drugs to a patient. The delivery of medication is directly tied to the charge for the medication. Thus the responsibility for charging or crediting medication belongs to technicians. This aspect of their job is strictly governed by federal regulations. These laws hold the technician directly responsible for the accuracy of a patient’s account’s charge and credit transactions. Because every dose is related to a specific day and time, when technicians credit they must apply that change to the corresponding dose. Assignificant as accuracy is to the patient’s account, accuracy in the making of their medications is even more important. Precision of a patient’s intravenous medication is essential; it must be safe from contamination, toxicity, and side effects. Most people believe these medications are compounded or mixed by a trained and licensed individual. However, this is inaccurate because the pharmacy technician actually compounds a large percentage of a patient’s medications. Compounding involves a techn... ... middle of paper ... ... for every pharmacist. This ratio dictates that pharmacists can not oversee every aspect of technicians’ jobs. It is this singular fact that very few people realize. The pharmacy technician who receives no formal training is responsible for not just the delivery of a patient’s medication, but also for their bill, their confidential information, and their life. The question now is, how can an uneducated individual be given so much responsibility? Technicians are granted these responsibilities because a pharmacist can not do the job alone. Pharmacists strive to mold each new technician into an employee that will realize what technicians really do. Pharmacists and technicians provide patients with safe and accurate medication in a timely manner. This is not a task for pharmacists or technicians alone; it is task that requires both personnel in order to be accomplished.
The compounding lab technicians will assist with compounding of ingredients, sterilizing of tools and equipment, entering/retrieving data with the computer, categorizing, calculating and analyzing the data, as well as assisting with customer service. Customers who chose to enter the pharmacy will enter at the front of the store and will be greeted by the store assistant. The assistant will greet each customer with a smile and make an offer to look at any herbal, mineral or store special offers. The assistant will also assist the customer with any prescription pick-ups. The most important job of the pharmacy assistant is to create a positive in-store experience. The pharmacy will have two wellness events each month such as better nutrition choices, cholesterol and diabetic screenings.
Pharmacists have a very tedious job because it requires a lot of attention to detail. Pharmacists dispense drugs and provide information to the patients about medication. Not only do they provide information to patients about side effects, but also they inform physicians of the ever-changing selection of drugs and dosage. Weighing, measuring, mixing drugs, finding the identity and purity, and strength of medications is also an important part of the job. Pharmacists must be sure not to dispense drugs that will have a negative reaction to the other medications that the patient may already be taking. Pharmacists work in clean, well-lighted, and well-ventilated areas. They work with dangerous materials and sterile pharmaceutical products, which require them to wear gloves and masks. Many full time, salaried pharmacists work at least about forty hours per week. Community pharmacists research and dispense information and help for diabetes, asthma, smoking cessation, and high blood pressure....
Some method such as audits, chart reviews, computer monitoring, incident report, bar codes and direct patient observation can improve and decrease medication errors. Regular audits can help patient’s care and reeducate nurses in the work field to new practices. Also reporting of medication errors can help with data comparison and is a learning experience for everyone. Other avenues that has been implemented are computerized physician order entry systems or electronic prescribing (a process of electronic entry of a doctor’s instructions for the treatment of patients under his/her care which communicates these orders over a computer network to other staff or departments) responsible for fulfilling the order, and ward pharmacists can be more diligence on the prescription stage of the medication pathway. A random survey was done in hospital pharmacies on medication error documentation and actions taken against pharmacists involved. A total of 500 hospital were selected in the United States. Data collected on the number of medication error reported, what types of errors were documented and the hospital demographics. The response rate was a total of 28%. Practically, all of the hospitals had policies and procedures in place for reporting medication errors.
Communication in the Pharmacy as a pharmacy technician has many important roles and responsibilities when it comes to patient care. some of these roles and responsibilities can include great customer service skills, being knowledgeable about medications, being attentive to detail.
In the world of pharmacy, it has become increasingly common for the technicians and assistants who are minding the store. Pharmacy technicians are the people who help the patients in different ways. The roles of a pharmacy technician have changed so much over the years (Saffer 34). In the past, a pharmacy technician is primary job was to fill prescription. However, now they have several responsibilities dealing with comparing and selling prescriptions to the patients. Pharmacy technicians have the opportunity to specialize in different areas of healthcare, such as advising patients about the importance of a healthy lifestyle and better living.
Giving out the wrong medication, or improper dosages can potentially be fatal to patients. Pharmacy technicians must be willing to take on this risk and do their work as carefully and accurately as possible.
Different jobs available for the newcomers in the industry are fast declining. This is because they no longer serve as an appealing career opportunity for the newbies. But technology and healthcare are the two sectors that have been growing continuously. These sectors are offering new job opportunities and they tend to be more immune from offshoring or outsourcing effects. While working in the form of a pharmacy technician, an individual works under the supervision of a certified pharmacist. A pharmacy technician might
When administering medications it is critical to pay great attention to the task at hand. This task becomes more important when administering medications to the elderly because of the different physiological and psychological changes that occur in the body. Equally important are, the lab values related to the medications being administered, differences in administering medications to the elderly, and the use of the six rights and three checks.
“Pharmacy technicians help pharmacists dispense prescription medication to customers or health professionals. They work in retail pharmacies and hospitals.” Some other responsibilities that pharmacy technicians have are refilling prescriptions, answering phone calls from doctors or patients, entering prescriptions into a computer system, and also packing and labeling prescriptions ("Pharmacy Technicians." Bureau). A couple different kinds of companies that would employ pharmacy technicians are grocery stores, if they have pharmacies in the store, pharmacies,
Nonnie Wiltz5/16/2018HS115 ACCertification process and scopeThe role of a pharmacy technician is to be responsible. as a professional and that a safe and effective medication-use process absolutely depends on the skills, knowledge, and competence of those pharmacy technicians. pharmacy technicians require standardized education, training, and competence assessment. The role of the technicians is a significant focus of the ASHP Pharmacy Practice Model Initiative. My role as a pharmacy tech is to make sure I give the patient the right medicine, the right dosage and to interpret the exact directions on how to take the medicine pharmacy technicians have many different roles in a variety of healthcare settings, with varying levels
I have decided to choose Pharmacy Technician as my health care profession. This field deals with drugs and making sure that we, as Pharmacy Technicians, give patients the right drug that doctors’ prescribe to an individual. In a pharmacy, a technician has many different jobs to do in the pharmacy. For example, we check the drugs that we have on stock to ensure that they aren’t expired. If the technician fails check each drug for expiration then, it could be a danger for the patient that is receiving the drug. They also have other jobs that are just as important. Such as, putting the prescription on file and maintaining the patient’s records to prevent a mix-up in prescription distribution and also to ensure the correct amount is given. In a community, pharmacy technicians have even more tasks which
Before Pharmacist would have to do everything, from patient consulting to dispensing the medication. After adding the pharmacy technician the time and duties for pharmacist have changed. We get the process of the prescribed drug ready for the patient and the pharmacist just reviews to make sure everything is correct and in order to avoid any problems for the patient. Now in the present they are putting P.T’s as a Dispensary Manager. This ultimately shows how as times goes by pharmacy technicians are received important roles in hospitals and community pharmacies.
Ambulatory pharmacists pride themselves in building long-term relationships with their patients. Aspects that are the least appealing to the job are dealing with paperwork and documentations. Some ambulatory care pharmacists claim that other healthcare provides believe they are trying to do their job for them and fail to realize these pharmacists are rather complementing their work. This problem arises due to ambulatory care pharmacy being a more recent
First, here is some important background information about Pharmacists. A Pharmacist is someone who is trained and licensed to distribute medicinal drugs and to advise on their use. According to the Occupational Outlook Handbook Pharmacists do all of the following: "Fill prescriptions, verify proper amounts of medication to give to patients, check whether the prescription will interact negatively with other drugs that a patient is taking or conditions the patient has, instruct patients on how to and when to take a prescribed medicine, Advise patients on potential side effects they may experience from taking the medicine, Advise patients about general health topics, such as diet, exercise, managing stress, and on other issues, such as what equipment or supplies would be best for a health problem, Keep records and do other administrative tasks, Complete insurance forms and work with insurance companies to be sure that patients get the medicine they need, Teach other healthcare practitioners about proper medication therapies for patients, and lastly oversee the work of pharmacy technicians and pharmacists training."() Some pharmacists participate in compounding, where they create medications by mixing ingredients themselves. Pharmacists tha...
Pharmacist and Pharmacy technician should modify their counselling questions according to the feedback given by the customer. They should avoid medical terms and use easy language.