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Pharmacy Technicians' Willingness to Perform Emerging Tasks in Community Practice.
William R Doucette1, Jon C Schommer2
1College of Pharmacy, University of Iowa, 115 S. Grand Avenue, S518 PHAR, Iowa City, IA 52242, USA. william-doucette@uiowa.edu.
Pharmacy (Basel, Switzerland)
|October 17, 2018
Summary
Community pharmacy technicians are willing to take on new patient care tasks. However, workplace factors like staffing and time constraints can influence their willingness to adopt emerging roles.
Area of Science:
- Pharmacy Practice
- Healthcare Workforce Development
Background:
- Community pharmacies are expanding patient care services.
- Pharmacy technicians play a crucial role in supporting these services.
Purpose of the Study:
- To assess community pharmacy technicians' willingness to perform new tasks.
- To identify factors influencing their adoption of emerging roles.
Main Methods:
- An online survey was administered to 639 community pharmacy technicians.
- Data collected included respondent characteristics, task involvement, willingness, and influencing factors.
- Descriptive statistics were used for analysis.
Main Results:
- Technicians showed high willingness for most emerging tasks, but low willingness for administering vaccinations and finger-stick blood draws.
- Key barriers included insufficient staffing, lack of time, lack of specialized skill classification by employers, and workplace stress.
- A majority of technicians had significant experience, with most working full-time.
Conclusions:
- Community pharmacy technicians are generally willing to embrace new tasks to support evolving patient care services.
- Addressing workplace challenges is essential to facilitate the successful integration of technicians into expanded roles.