Why Pharmacy Technicians Are Important?
Wow 2020! It was in 1992 when I graduated from MSU with a Bachelor of Science in Biology and started my career.
Why choose to be a pharmacy technician? Pharmacy technicians are what physician assistants are to doctors, what dental Hygienists are to a dentists and what radiology technicians are to radiologist?
Pharmacy Technicians are an extra set of eyes and ears to the Pharmacist. They provide a safety net in medication checking as they serve as a second pair of eyes reviewing product before they are given to patients and in listening to what is happening around them.
Over the year’s pharmacy technicians have really stepped up and proved themselves worthy of being more than just the pharmacist “assistant”. During the development of Tech-Check-Tech (TCT) process there were validation studies conducted to confirm the medication checking accuracy of Pharmacy technicians. These studies documented technicians to be able to check medications at a 99.89% accuracy rate. The accuracy rate of technicians compared to pharmacist was the ground breaking data that allowed many states Board of Pharmacy to approve the Tech-Check-Tech process, allowing technicians to check products that would normally be checked by a pharmacist.
Pharmacy Technicians play an integral role in the healthcare industry. Pharmacy Technicians provide Pharmacist the support they need to do their jobs. We now have TCT certifications that again validate the accuracy of the pharmacy technician and provides benefits for both technicians and pharmacist. Allowing technicians to do more provides then with a sense of ownership in a day to day duties and also
creates opportunities to expand their knowledge and provides a path for career development.
The roles of pharmacy technicians are expanding to advanced licensure ASHP and PTCB have been the champions for advance pharmacy technician’s roles with accreditation for pharmacy technician training programs and with certifications for pharmacy technicians. Technicians now have certifications available in informatics, medications history, compounded sterile preparations, quality assurance and regulatory compliance. These are all great ways for technicians to expand and prove their-knowledge.
As the healthcare world continue to develop and evolve, so will the role of pharmacy technician’s the number of people needed to enter the job market as pharmacy technicians is increasing.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics has predicated an above-average growth rate for this career path at about 12% in ten years and experts suspects that the duties of pharmacy technician will evolve with the needs of the consumer and medical advancements. Pharmacy technicians are growing in number and in value, to keep up with advancements we also need to keep up with the knowledge that will be necessary to make advancements.
Amelia Sherman, BS CPhT, PRS, CSPT