With the continuous drug shortages that the United States has withstood for quite some time, pharmacy careers and expectations are going to see changes. Each pharmacy technician will have to not only have a great education behind them, but through the right personal development, stand above other pharmacy technicians. Pharmacy technicians must have increased knowledge about recent drug shortages to stay competitive in the job market.
It’s not going to just be good enough for pharmacy technicians to have a knowledge base about the most current drug shortages, but the skills, ability, and desire to help curtail some of the drug shortage issues affecting patient care. In a recent article, the National Pharmacy Technician Association has acknowledged the fact that pharmacies are depending on their pharmacists to help devise systematic ways to combat drug-shortages rather than upper management.
The trends in medicine show that certified pharmacy technicians (CPHT’s) are now being used—readily—as both pharmacy purchasers and buyers.
Both pharmacy purchasers and buyers help assist the management team in ordering and organizing the medicine stock and maintaining the appropriate inventory for the individual pharmacy. Not only do today’s best pharmacists need to deliver the best customer service, read doctor’s prescriptions accurately, and fill prescriptions timely and correctly, but they need to have multi-tasking abilities. They have to have the skills to handle their regular pharmacy responsibilities plus the roles of at least another person.
Usually when you think of pharmacy technicians, you think of professionals that tend to work in a solitary environment, independently, but now pharmacists have to prepare themselves to work with others and even know how to contact wholesalers and retailers directly. As PharmD Manager Erin Fox says: “[Pharmacists must be prepared to work] cooperatively within the pharmacy team; they allow the department to better optimize daily workflow output…”
Besides pharmacists serving as pharmacists plus buyers and purchasers, some health professionals are recommending that some pharmacists, with the right skill-set and qualifications to function as drug shortage coordinators. These types of pharmacists would have to develop the career skills to determine the length of a drug shortage, be willing to contact the manufacturers and wholesalers, and evaluate how patient care could be negatively affected. They would then have to be able to build a plan to combat the drug shortage without letting it affect their ability to fill prescriptions for patients.
The types of career development that today’s pharmacists need deal mainly with effective communication skills and increased knowledge of how the pharmacy industry works from manufacturer to the pharmacy filling the prescription. The pharmacists of 2012 will not be able to just know their job, but how their whole industry works.