I am a regulated pharmacy technician located in Canada (aka a former pharm. tech. student). This blog contains pharmacy-related posts that are reflective of MY own thoughts, useful information (in my opinion) and do not necessarily reflect that of the Pharmacy profession(s).
I hope that you’ve learned something about the pharmacy world from my “series” of pharmacy-related posts this month! (Despite my lack of “original” posts this year)!
Compounding medications is one service out of many that are offered by pharmacies in Canada. Despite the video being American, a lot of it applies to Canadian pharmacies as well!
As the video mentions, the compounding of medications is the preparation of medications for a specific patient! Meaning that these medications are made only when commercially made medications/mass produced medications are not available! This is similar to buying cake from a grocery store vs going to a fancy bakery and having the cake customized to your tastes.
In fact, there are speciality compounding pharmacies that exist to just to make these special medications, when “non-speciality compounding” pharmacies do not have the equipment nor materials to make these medications.
Pharmacists play an important role in finding and/or creating a formula (aka recipe) to make these special medications. However, pharmacy technicians also play a large role in actually making these medications! In fact, the vast majority of the time it may be a technician that makes these medications!
For example, when you visit a hospital and you need an IV bag filled with antibiotics it is most likely a pharmacy technician that is making it (in my area of Canada anyway)!
Have you ever wondered what a pharmacy in a hospital looked like?The video above shows an example of a well-funded and beautiful hospital pharmacy from the United States but is applicable to hospital pharmacies in Canada!
Sterile compounding is one of the specialized tasks that pharmacy technicians are trained in. As shown in the video above, it demonstrates various techniques that technicians would use when preparing sterile compounds.
For example, from the “starting” point of the video (the 4:12 mark) to the 5:57 mark, is a demonstration on how to reconstitute a powdered medication (aka dissolving the powder in a liquid). If you decide to watch the entire video, it demonstrates how to prepare various other preparations!
A reblog of last year’s Day 23 of PAM for this year! Still a relevant topic and one of the things that differentiates a pharmacy technician and a pharmacy assistant in (most parts of) Canada!
Have you ever been told that your medication is on backorder? Or that the brand of the medication has been changed because it there is a drug shortage?
Well, unfortunately, this is not an uncommon occurrence in the pharmacy.
How does a drug shortage happen?
There can be a large number of reasons which include:
Disruptions in the manufacturing process of the medication
Product has been discontinued by the company
An expected increase in demand for the medication
Lack of raw materials/active ingredient(s) to make a medication
Of course when there is a drug shortage, the pharmacy team would do their best to locate a supply of the “shorted” medication for the patient and/or the pharmacist will consult with the prescriber about an alternative therapy to substitute for the “shorted” medication and counsel the patient about the change as needed.
This means that if the “shorted drug” is not available, an interchangeable generic drug may be substituted, the quantity of the drug being dispensed may decrease (i.e. a 30 day supply instead of a 90 day supply), or there may be a change in medication completely (that results in a similar effect)!
Also, as a fun fact in Canada, Health Canada had introduced regulations for drug manufacturers to report drug shortages, anticipated drug shortages and even discontinuation of drugs in 2016.
As a result, this reporting of drug shortages is definitely useful for the pharmacy team to manage their medication supplies to ensure patients receive there medicinal therapies.
If you are curious to learn more about drug shortages, you can read more about it from Health Canada here and if you’re curious about what drugs are currently experiencing shortages you can visit the Drugs Shortages Canada website here.
After grocery shopping, what do you do with your groceries when you get home? Normally, you would put them away!
The same goes for your medications/vitamins/herbal products and more!
Proper medication storage goes a long way to making sure your medications are effective when you take them. In the infographic, there are 3 reasons why you should keep your meds stored safely! (This also applies when you go traveling!)
If you have any questions about how to store your medications, the pharmacy staff at your local pharmacy can help you out!
In an analogy, medication storage is kind of like storing a tub of ice cream. You can store it properly in a freezer, so that you can have some cool somewhat solid deliciousness later. Or you can leave it on a kitchen table for several hours, and have some room temperature liquid sugary dessert. It’s just not the same!
Today’s day 18 PAM post is a reblog of one I made last year!
In addition, to the specialized role that I had mentioned in the post, a pharmacy technician can also be an operational pharmacy manager, work in inventory management, work in a drug utilization team, specialize in finding out if a medication is latex free, etc.
Reblog of my PAM day 16 post from last year! Where whenever you work front-line in the pharmacy and interact with patients you often do health promotion related activities!
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