Duties and responsibilities of pharmacy technicians

¶ … Pharmacy Technician Today

One of the realities of life in the United States today is that there are a lot more old people around, and their numbers are expected to continue to grow as the Baby Boomers continue to retire in ever-greater numbers in the years to come. In this environment, it is reasonable to assume that many Americans will continue to seek out the best values in prescription costs and service, and that jobs in the allied healthcare professions such as pharmacy technician are going to experience significant growth in the coming years. Therefore, this paper provides a review of the relevant literature to develop an appropriate background including an overview of the typical duties and responsibilities of pharmacy technicians, and what type of training and education are required for this profession. A summary of the research and salient findings are presented in the conclusion.

Review and Discussion

Background and Overview. The modern pharmacy is a busy and complex work environment, and pharmacy technicians must possess a wide range of communication and technical skills to be successful. Furthermore, the importance of these activities to healthcare consumers is abundantly clear. According to Bandow (2003), "Few sectors of the economy have provided more benefits to consumers than the pharmaceutical industry. More important, prices for U.S. pharmaceuticals are not excessive relative to the benefits they offer. Drugs have contributed to the sharp reduction in mortality rates from many diseases, including AIDS" (30). The most recent encyclopedic entry (2006) for the profession shows that there are a number of laws that govern pharmaceutical practice in the United States, including regulations for the practice of pharmacy, the sale of poisons, the dispensing of narcotics, and the labeling and sale of dangerous drugs (The practice of pharmacy 5).

Typical Duties and Responsibilities of Pharmacy Technicians. Many tertiary and larger healthcare facilities provide some type of incremental steps in their career paths for pharmacy technician that provide for increasing levels of responsibility and compensation (Mckelvey & Peters 144). Although every healthcare setting is unique, there are some common duties and responsibilities that many pharmacy techniques can be expected to be required to carry out as part of their daily responsibilities and these are described further in Table 1 below.

Table 1.

Typical Pharmacy Technician Activities and Required Concepts.

Activity

Required Ability

Working with staff in the dispensary by unpacking supplies received, checking stocks of drugs held on the wards, updating computer records.

Understand how drugs are managed in the hospital.

Working in out-patients in the associated non-teaching hospital in order to build up experience of working under pressure during clinic sessions. Learning how to catch up with routine tasks during quiet periods

Competence in managing a range of different activities

Working alongside experienced staff dealing directly with patients in order to observe how to communicate: using clear language, checking that each patient has understood instructions, not being patronizing, etc.

Wide range of communication skills

Being given specific instruction by an experienced worker on how to operate systems used in the hospital for drug control, correct procedures for handling prescriptions, etc.

Competence in operating hospital systems and procedures for drug control, etc.

Being shown how to clear the dot-matrix printer when jammed-up with sticky labels for drug containers; how to reload the continuous strip of labels into the printer; and how to decide if the equipment technician(s) need(s) to be called in if a serious jam occurs.

Ability to use the dot-matrix printer efficiently for typing labels for drug containers.

Initial/continuing education

Qualification to support competent performance as a pharmacy technician.

Source: Mckelvey & Peters 144-5.

Preparing for a Career and Compensation as a Pharmacy Technician. Some educational institutions offer coursework that qualifies individuals as pharmacy technicians upon graduation (Black, 2000). In other cases, on-the-job experience is available for students wanting to pursue a career as a pharmacy technician and a combination of the two is also available in some parts of the country. For instance, in their essay, "Revitalizing High Schools: What the School-to-Career Movement Can Contribute," Goldberger and Kazis (1996) report that Boston offers a program wherein high school students spend the last one or two years of high school rotating through at least three different areas of a hospital, learning skills in the context of paid training experiences; six months before graduation, seniors elect a career path.

For those students that elect to work full-time or to pursue less than an associate's degree will have access to such hospital jobs as multi-skilled patient-care technician or pharmacy technician with some experience under their belts (Goldberger & Kazis 547). According to Klingenstein (2002), the average salary for pharmacy technicians in the United States today is approximately $21,600 per year, but the type and extent of benefits received depend on the healthcare institution.