Potential Support Roles for Pharmacy Technicians in Provision of Clinical Pharmacy Services

Abstract

Objectives: To determine the current and possible future utilisation of pharmacy technicians in clinical pharmacy support roles in Australia. To use the information to develop a set of potential support tasks for pharmacy technicians working under the supervision of clinical pharmacists.

A review of the medication pathway in rural Queensland, Australia

“…The standards that apply are the Pharmaceutical Society of Australia (PSA) Professional Practice Standards [21] . Specifically, the pharmacist should review the medication order by considering the patient's medication history, drug interactions or appropriateness of dosing regimen when dispensing the prescribed medication [2,21,22] . Studies have shown that the support from a pharmacist in reviewing prescribing decisions is perceived by prescribers as valuable [19,23–25] …”

“…Under this arrangement, public hospitals are able to dispense 1 month's worth of discharge medications under the PBS, extending the time for a patient to access a GP for repeat prescriptions. Ideally, a clinical pharmacist's services should also be included under this arrangement to promote QUM via medication reconciliation and information provision [8,22,35,42,43] . However, with the limited pharmacy/dispensing services in rural hospitals, the majority of PBS prescriptions generated by these hospitals are dispensed by community pharmacies with no medications supplied from the hospital on discharge [42] .…”

“…Enhancement of pharmacy support staff (pharmacy assistants and technicians) capacity and roles in medication supply and delivery systems may enable the available pharmacists to provide extended services such as medication management or clinical services, both in hospital and community settings [22,28,43,60,64] . The Regulation allows pharmacy staff some involvement in the provision of non‐prescription medications (S2 and S3 medications), assembling/labelling medications, data entry and daily stock control, under the direction and personal supervision of a pharmacist [5,21,60] .…”

“…This requirement for supervision is the limiting factor in the utilisation of pharmacy support staff in rural areas, although a recent change in the Regulation , allowing ‘supervision’ via technology, such as video‐conferencing, [5] warrants investigation. Other limiting factors include lack of a career pathway, liability issues and variations in workplace roles and training [22] . In certain countries, for example New Zealand, the USA and the UK, there are formalised frameworks and legislation in place to allow pharmacy technicians to be more actively involved in the entire dispensing process under the authorisation of the supervising pharmacist [22,65] .…”

Impact of an expanded ward pharmacy technician role on service-delivery and workforce outcomes in a subacute aged care service

“…Although pharmacy technicians have been employed to support pharmacists in hospital settings for many years, Australian surveys indicate that only a minority of pharmacy technician time is spent supporting clinical pharmacy services . Further, there is little literature on the use of pharmacy technicians in subacute inpatient settings …”