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2020-06-11
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Practice-Based Research
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Copyright (c) 2020 Michael Andreski, Erica Martin, Victoria Valentine Brouner, Sarah Sorum
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
Copyright of content published in INNOVATIONS in pharmacy belongs to the author(s).
Advancing Community Pharmacy Practice – A Technician Product Verification Pilot to Optimize Care
Michael Andreski
Drake University College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences
Erica Martin
Pharmacy Society of Wisconsin
Victoria Valentine Brouner
Concordia University Wisconsin School of Pharmacy
Sarah Sorum
Pharmacy Society of Wisconsin
DOI: https://doi.org/10.24926/iip.v11i2.2340
Keywords: Technician Product Verification; Product Verification; Delegate-Check-Delegate; Tech-Check-Tech; Optimizing Care; Pharmacy Care; Community Pharmacy; Pharmacy Technician
Abstract
Elevating the technical role of pharmacy technicians to perform Technician Product Verification (TPV) is one strategy that has shown promise to optimize pharmacy practice models. This is done by better positioning pharmacists to provide clinical care, in line with their education and expertise. TPV permits a Validated Pharmacy Technician, as defined by the Wisconsin Pharmacy Examining Board, to verify the accuracy of a product filled by another technician. The pharmacist maintains responsibility for assessing the clinical appropriateness of the prescription, including drug utilization review, data entry, and patient counseling.
During the study period, 12,891 pharmacist-verified prescriptions (baseline) and 27,447 Validated Pharmacy Technician-verified prescriptions were audited for accuracy. The aggregate verification error rate for pharmacist-verified prescriptions was 0.16% and 0.01% for Validated Pharmacy Technician-verified prescriptions. The mean error rate was significantly less for Validated Pharmacy Technician-verified prescriptions than for pharmacist-verified prescriptions (0.19 ± 0.174 % vs 0.03 ± 0.089 %, p=0.020) (Figure 3).
This suggests TPV in the community pharmacy setting maintained patient safety. In this study, Validated Pharmacy Technicians were shown to be more accurate than pharmacists at performing product verification. The ability to delegate the product verification task holds the potential to free up pharmacist time for increased direct patient care. Increasing direct patient care by pharmacists in community pharmacies may have significant implications for improving patient outcomes and pharmacy quality.
Article Type: Original Research
