The Inpatient Certified Pharmacy Technician provides daily supportive services for the Department of Pharmacy according to hospital policies and procedures and in compliance with Kentucky pharmacy laws and other regulatory agencies. The technician actively supports and participates in the department’s continuous quality improvement initiatives and competency assessments and demonstrates a commitment to customer service and patient safety. The technician responds to requests in a prompt and efficient manner.

Major job responsibilities include: distributes medications, including controlled substances, to a secure place for storage or administration, restocks automated dispensing cabinets (ADC), compounds sterile and non-sterile products, communicates with hospital staff, completes inspections, and reports unsafe practices to leadership.

The following activities are components of the position necessary to support the major job responsibilities:

Provide supportive services to the inpatient pharmacy
• Assists with filling, processing, and dispensing of medications by labeling medication, including bulk supplies, with proper ancillary labeling and bagging procedures, with final check performed by a pharmacist
• Answers phones according to established phone etiquette and triages calls to the proper personnel
• Charges and/or credits patients for medications used via the computer system
• Accurately and efficiently unit doses medications. This includes cleaning the compounding area, restocking and replacing supplies, documenting in the compounding record, and ensuring doses are correctly labeled and prepared for pharmacist verification
• Prepares medications for loading into the ADC and unloads medications from the ADC utilizing bar code scanning. Fills inventory requests for nursing unit’s ADCs, floor stock, and fills patient specific drawers by placing the proper bins according to census profile.
• Supports the drug inventory process including ordering, rotation, and restocking of drug dispensing areas with drugs and supplies needed to process patient medications orders.
• Ensures the maintenance of a clean and orderly work area, including a sterile environment
• Completes nursing unit and inventory inspections, as assigned. Restocks kits and crash cart trays, as required
• Fills controlled substance orders, reconciles all discrepancies and closes all loops on a daily basis
• Monitors medication activity for potential drug diversion and reports any discrepancies to the pharmacist or pharmacy leadership
• Delivers medications, including controlled substances, to nursing units’ ADC as scheduled and for emergent deliveries as necessary
• Assists with ensuring medications are delivered efficiently and accurately to patient care unit areas. Includes checking the tube system with each delivery, retrieving and transporting medications to the appropriate location.
• Prepares and packages hazardous medications and adheres to all safety measures for handling hazardous medications described in USP 795/797/800
• Utilizes aseptic technique following department policies and procedures when compounding sterile products

Serve as a mentor to new pharmacy technicians, pharmacy technician students, and pharmacy students
• Provide guidance to certified pharmacy technicians and IPPE pharmacy student rotations as necessary
• Precept pharmacy technician students

Execute hospital and pharmacy policies and procedures
• Investigate and resolve automated dispensing cabinet related issues
• Utilize Pharmogistics system and carousels to resolve drug distribution related issues
• Cover assigned shifts as determined by departmental need
• Facilitate investigational drug studies with assistance of the pharmacist and/or other personnel involved in the drug study
• Complete sterile compounding training, including hazardous medications, and demonstrate competency on a frequency defined by the Sterile Compounding Supervisor
• Complete extemporaneous compounding training, including hazardous medications, and demonstrate competency on a frequency defined by pharmacy leadership
• Participate in orientation of new staff members
• Contribute to the development of policies and procedures as requested by pharmacy leadership

Effective Communication Skills
• Achieve and maintain satisfactory working relationships with pharmacy leadership, pharmacy staff, and other departments throughout the system
• Attend departmental staff meetings

Relationships
• Performs tasks under the supervision of all pharmacists and pharmacy leadership. Report to the Inpatient Pharmacy Supervisor or Sterile Compounding Supervisor
• Adheres to Pharmacy Services Agreement

Patient Population Served
• The Pharmacy Department provides pharmaceutical care to neonatal/infant, pediatric, adolescent, adult and geriatric populations.

Education / Accreditation / Licensure (required & preferred):

• High School diploma or equivalent
• Completion of a formal Pharmacy Technician educational program and/or an Associate’s degree, or previous hospital-based pharmacy technician experience preferred
• Registered as a pharmacy technician with the Commonwealth of Kentucky
• Current Board certification by Pharmacy Technician Certification Board®; certification not required for second year students and/or licensed pharmacy interns.

Experience (required and preferred):

• One year of pharmacy technician experience preferred. 

• Required:  Sterile compounding trained and practicing continuously for > 1 year, controlled substance trained (non-primary role), OR trained as primary role, pre-packing as primary role, pharmacy intern designation, satellite tech as primary role, proficiency in procurement utilizing wholesaler system(s) as determined by pharmacy site supervisor

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