Transcript Pharmacy Technician*s Course. LaGuardia Community College

Pharmacy Technician Career
Environments
 Retail Pharmacy
 Retail pharmacy, also know as community based pharmacy or
community pharmacy, is a very common environment in
which pharmacy technicians are employed. These
pharmacies provide prescription services and an outlet for the
sales of commonly purchased good and services.
 Retail pharmacies consists of independent pharmacies and
chain pharmacies.
 In general, the major benefit of retail pharmacies is
accessibility. Often the patient will go to see the pharmacist
at a retail store first before seeking medical attention for
which they may have limited access to or no insurance to help
cover the costs.
Independent Pharmacy
 Owned as a sole proprietorship by one or a few owners.
 Provide prescription filling along with other ancillary
services (surgical supplies, vitamins, hallmark®)
 Often provide personal services
 Major benefit: familiarity of the pharmacists with the
customers
 Disadvantage: may not have the pricing power of
larger chain stores.
Chain Drug Stores
 National franchises like Walgreen’s, CVS, Rite Aid, and
Duane Reade (east coast) have many stores around the
US and/or in a regional area
 Offer convenience with many stores operating 24/7
 Major advantages: pricing power, convenience, and
accessibility.
 Disadvantages: lack of personalized service between
pharmacist and patient.
Retail Staff
 Supervising pharmacist: a full time pharmacist who is in charge
of the legal and administrative aspect of the pharmacy
 Store Manager: a person, who may or may not be a pharmacist,
that is in charge of the operation of the store in general
 Typically the store is divided into front end and back end.
 Front end deals with OTC issues and other non medication issues a
customer may have
 Back end contains the pharmacy
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Stores the legend medications
Stores other restricted meds and higher priced devices
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Blood glucose strips, blood pressure monitors, Plan B, and products that
contain pseudoephedrine.
Combat Methamphetamine epidemic act of 2005 requires removal of
pseudoephedrine products from the public area
Regulatory Agencies
 State Boards of Pharmacy regulates the practice of
pharmacy which in NYS are contained in the education law
of the board of regents article 137, the public health law
article 33 for controlled substances, and the NYSRR title 10
among others. SBOP conducts inspections of pharmacy
facilities.
 Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services: CMS
regulates the federal programs of Medicare and Medicaid
along others. CMS conducts inspections to ensure
compliance with federal regulations.
 Third Party Payers: Third party insurance companies also
may conduct inspects of pharmacy establishments to
determine if contractual agreements are kept between
insurance payer and the pharmacy.
Summary of Retail Pharmacy
Technicians
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Handling Deliveries
Inventory management
Record keeping
Stock rotation and others
Enter prescriptions in the patient’s medical profile
Create and maintain patient profiles to include:
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Name, address, DOB, contact information
Medical allergies
Food allergies
Medical history (pertinent to medication use)
Current medications and herbals that patient is taking
 One area where technician can offer advise is in the use of medical devices like
blood pressure monitors, glucose testing equipment, etc.
 Communicate with physician’s or their agents to obtain refill authorizations
 In some states, compounding of solutions, suspensions, creams and ointments
 Handling insurance issues to obtain pharmacy reimbursement
Health System Pharmacy
 Pharmacy setting where patients reside at the facility where
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the pharmacy is located
Includes acute care hospitals
Long term care facilities-provides skilled nursing services
to patients in need of long term rehabilitative services
Hospices-facilities that provide end of life palliative care to
terminally ill patients.
Nursing Homes-facilities that provide skilled nursing care
to elderly people who can no longer care for themselves due
to chronic illness
Correctional Facilities-prisons
Hospital Staff
 Includes pharmacists, nurses, physical therapists, respiratory therapists,
nutritionists, etc
 DO- doctor of osteopathy is a medical doctor that can practice conventional
medicine and tends to use musculoskeletal manipulation to assist the patient.
 MD- doctor of medicine who practices conventional medicine.
 Physician Assistant- a licensed individual who is trained to work with and
under the supervision of a physician in the care of patients.
 Nurse Practitioner- a licensed individual who has rights similar to a physician
assistant
 RN- a licensed individual who is trained to provide and administer medical
therapy (including medications) to patients under the order of a DO or MD
 LPN- similar to an RN, however, works under the supervision of an RN.
 Certified Nursing Assistant- CNA works under the supervision of an RN;
however medication administration is not allowed
Regulatory Agencies in the Hospital
 Joint Commission on the Accreditation of Healthcare
Organizations
 Called Joint Commission or JCAHO for short
 Provides accreditation to hospitals, Long term care
facilities and other organizations
 Site inspections conducted every three years
 Passing of site inspections required for accreditation
 Accreditation required for CMS funding by the
government
State Board of Pharmacy
 State board of pharmacy typically monitors
community pharmacies; but in the hospital setting
monitors the staff in the hospital and not the
department as a whole.
State Health Departments
 State health departments directly governs hospitals,
including the pharmacy department.
 Directly charters a hospital and grants its privilege to
operate in the state.
Medication Dispensing System
 Floor Stock Distribution. A system where a compliment of
medication inventory is keep at the nursing station.
System is prone to diversion and is not used anymore in
most hospitals, except in cases of ADC.
 Cart Fill System: A system where a given supply of
medication (24-72 hours)is dispensed to a patient via a
locked cassette located in a centralized physical cassette
 Unit Dose System/Prepackaging : A system where bulk
medications are pre packaged into individual packets where
the contents of such packets are a single unit of use. i.e A
bulk container of 100 phenobarbital tablets in 100 individual
blister packets of a single tablet.
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Extremely cost efficient
Can be used in the Floor Stock System and/or the Cart Fill system
Summary of the Pharmacy Technician’s
Duties in the Health System Pharmacies
 Data collection (information on drug turnover and
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usage)
Survey and inspections (nursing station inspection)
Education (training new technicians)
Maintenance (restock of omnicell and pyxis,
monitoring and replacement of crash cart items)
Dispensing/inventory management
 Filling patient’s medication cassettes
 Repackaging medications
 Compounding oral solutions, creams, and suspensions
 Compounding, in some states, IV parenteral drug
products after being USP 797 training
 Restocking and maintaining institutional crash carts
 Nursing Station inspections