¡Está por comenzar el congreso Picnic Arts Media 2018! Qué buenos exponentes, quisiera echarme una charlita con Avelina Lesper 🧐Cómo saben, tuve el gusto de diseñarles este año su imagen / Picnic Arts Media 2018 is just kicking off! As you know, I had the pleasure to design their official image this year ✌️ Many thanks to Valeria #picnic #picnicartsmedia #pam #pam2018 #illustration #design #art #astronaut #space #planets #idea #red #ilustracion #arte https://www.instagram.com/p/BpcObRiA1dJ/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1xzh81oeupswb
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)!
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.
Today’s topic is about the scope of practice of pharmacists and pharmacy technicians (in Canada)!
The scope of practice is essentially a list of duties/tasks that a health care professional (in this case a pharmacist (RPh) or a pharmacy technician (RPhT)) can do as permitted by legal legislation and training.
Two years ago, I had written a brief post (which you can read about here) about the scope of technicians and how it varies depending on where they practice. These duties can include filling a prescription, ensure that it is legal to fill a prescription (especially if a prescription looks like a forgery), being allowed to gather relevant information from the patient to create a patient profile that can help the pharmacist review and determine if the medication is appropriate for them, and more.
In extension, to that post (not that you need to read it), you can find that there is a lot of overlap between the job of a pharmacist and a pharmacy technician.
In fact, legally the pharmacists is able to do everything a technician can do and more. (And no, this does not work vice versa!) Especially if they use their clinical knowledge that they had gained from their hard years at work during their university days!
Now, why do pharmacy technicians (in Canada) have a scope of practice?
Let’s look at it this way, in a busy pharmacy, would a pharmacist be able to do everything and be familiar with every single aspect of the pharmacy?
In the ideal world yes, but in reality probably not.
Pharm. techs (in the vast majority of Canada) are a regulated profession (like pharmacists) that are trained to be knowledgeable about the technical aspects of the pharmacy.
As a result, techs tend to be more familiar with insurance policies, the technical aspects of making IV medications (especially if they work in a hospital type of pharmacy), compounding techniques, etc., as it is the core of their jobs.
Consequently, this would free up the pharmacists’ time to focus on the other parts of their scope of practice that are less technical in nature! For example, a pharmacist can take more time to interpret lab results, counsel patients about their medications and more.
In the end of the day, as summarized by the picture above, the pharmacist is able to perform everything a pharmacy technician can do and more.
But, with the help of technicians focusing on the technical aspects of operating the pharmacy, the pharmacist can focus more on using their clinical knowledge and judgment to help patients to the full extent of their abilities.
Welcome to PAM day #3, and apologies for how late this post came!
As you can kind of see from the name of my blog, you can assume that I’m a pharmacy technician from Canada.
However, keep in mind in Canada, pharm techs are significantly different from pharmacy assistants!
The key difference between the two jobs is that pharmacy technicians are regulated, just like pharmacists (in the vast majority of Canada as of the time of this post)! Pharmacy assistants on the other hand are not, meaning pretty much anyone can apply to be a pharmacy assistant!
Now what does a technician do? Well you can see a quick summary of our duties below the cut!
