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Pharmacists,
and
pharmacy technicians for that matter, work in different areas like
retail drugstores, hospitals, clinics, nursing homes, the drug
industry, and regulatory agencies. Most of the pharmacists and
technicians work in community pharmacies like retail drugstores. To
better understand the hospital pharmacy technician job description,
it’s best that we understand the hospital pharmacist job description
also, since pharmacy technicians are trained to do most of the
pharmacist’s work.
There are significant differences between
pharmacies within hospitals and community pharmacies; which in turn,
also means there are considerable differences between pharmacy
technician job responsibilities in retail drugstores and those working
in hospitals. A hospital pharmacist job description may include more
complex clinical medication management issues, while those pharmacists
in community pharmacies often deal with the business and customer
relations issues. Consequently, a hospital pharmacy technician job
description brings about many of the same issues as that of the
hospital pharmacist. They are more focused on supervision of clinical
medication issues as opposed to the business side of selling retail.
Hospital pharmacies often stock different types of
medications for the medication needs of their hospitalized patients,
including the more specialized types of medication. The hospital
pharmacist, or the trained hospital pharmacy technician who the
pharmacist supervises, mixes sterile products and other medications
that are given intravenously, including TPN or Total Parenteral
Nutrition. This complex compounding process requires adequate training
for both the pharmacist and pharmacy technician to ensure quality
assurance of products. Since this compounding process is part of the
hospital pharmacy
technician job
description, hospitals prefer to hire PTCB pharmacy technicians, or
those technicians that are certified by the Pharmacy Technician
Certification Board.
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Technicians
working in
hospitals, nursing homes, and other similar types of facilities have
additional pharmacy technician job responsibilities. They may be
required to read patient charts in relation with a prescription that
will be prepared by the pharmacy technician after it was verified by
both the physician and the pharmacist. The technicians will then
deliver it to nurses who will in turn, administer the medication to
patients. The pharmacy technicians may also record the information onto
the patients’ profile.
Hospital pharmacy
technician salary is
usually higher compared to pharmacy technicians working in community
pharmacies. In fact, they have the highest salary among technicians
working in different industry sectors. Based on the US Bureau of Labor
Statistics report, most of the pharmacy technicians are working in
health and personal care stores, comprising 180,170 technicians in May
2008. Second on the list are those working in general medical and
surgical hospitals with 55,950 hospital pharmacy technician jobs. The
hospital pharmacy technician salary is $32,710 in average annual
salary, or $15.73 an hour. This is higher than the $27,590 average
yearly income of technicians working in health and personal care
stores.
If you are a pharmacist with enough experience and
training, especially if you’re a certified PTCB pharmacy technician,
it’s highly recommended that you apply for a position in a hospital
pharmacy. Although the hospital pharmacy technician job description
carries more responsibilities, with adequate training, there’s no
reason not to succeed in this field, as there will be more hospital
pharmacy technician jobs
opening up in the years to come.
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