Pharmacy Calculations 1040 is designed to teach pharmacy technician students the skills needed to perform pharmacy math calculations, conversions, measurements and applications of equations including calculations required for the usual dosages and solutions preparations. Also covered in the course are business terms and business math skills essential to pharmacy practice, as well as calculations to determine inventory and purchasing needs, profit margins, and inventory control.
In a couple of the calculations classes this semester we focused on the pharmacy laws in Utah. As a technician these are very important to remember and understand in order to keep a license. When you go in to take your test to receive your license there is a section just on the laws to make sure we as technicians know what our job description covers in order to keep the pharmacies patients safe. In the assignment below we were asked to use our knowledge on the Utah laws to answer the following questions:
What are the requirements to hold a pharmacy technician license?
What a pharmacy technician can or can't do according to the Utah Law?
How can a technician protect patient health information (HIPAA)
Utah Pharmacy Laws
Each state has different requirements to hold a pharmacy technician license. In some states you don’t have to be certified and in others they require you to go through a state approved program to receive your license. In states that require you to go through a program to receive the license sometimes you can find a company that is willing to hire you and put you through the program if you agree to working with the company for a certain amount of time after you receive the license, this is helpful for states that have a shortage in pharmacy technicians and have a hard time finding some to hire. In Utah a PTCB or ExCPT certification is required to work as a pharmacy technician in any pharmacy. In order to receive their license in Utah a pharmacy technician also has to pass a test Utah’s pharmacy laws. You must also pay a $100 non-refundable fee for the application and you also have to be 18 ears of age or older. Licenses need to be renewed every odd numbered year on September 30th, if license is not renewed before this date your current employer can put a hold on your employment or possibly terminate you. You must also complete your continued education requirements before this date as well.
As a pharmacy technician it is very important to know your rules from the pharmacist roles, these also vary in the different states. In other states pharmacy technicians are aloud to give shots or vaccinations, but this has not been cleared in Utah yet. As a pharmacy technician if you ever have questions whether or not you are supposed to be doing a task DOPL provides a whole list of operating standards that are approved for pharmacy technicians in subsection 58-17b-102(56). Pharmacy technicians can perform any task associated with the physical preparation and processing of prescriptions and orders. They are able to receive written prescriptions, take refill orders, entering the information into a database of patient profiles, prepare labels, collect the medications from the pharmacies inventory, count the medication and put them in containers, compounding and counsel patients on over-the-counter drugs and dietary supplements under the direction of a supervising pharmacist. These are only a few of the many tasks that pharmacy technicians are asked to do in their everyday jobs. If you are ever in a situation in a pharmacy and you aren’t sure if you are supposed to be performing the tasks as a technician you can also look it up on DOPL’s website or ask the pharmacist on duty to clarify.
HIPAA is very important when dealing with patient’s personal information. As a pharmacy technician or anybody else in the health care patient’s personal information should be kept highly confidential and should never be shared with anybody outside of the health field. There are even instances that patient information should not be shared between the different departments in the health care field. All patient information should not be shared even if you know the patient personally. If someone you know comes to the pharmacy to refill their prescription you cannot talk about what they filled and what prescriptions they are on to anybody. As a technician since we are often collecting patient’s health information it is very important to keep a boundary between your work and personal life. If something happens in the pharmacy with someone you know personally you should never bring that outside of work.