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Advancing Community Pharmacy Practice - A Technician Product Verification Pilot to Optimize Care
Michael Andreski1, Erica Martin2, Victoria Valentine Brouner3
1Drake University College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences.
Innovations in Pharmacy
|May 19, 2021
Summary
Pharmacy technicians performing Technician Product Verification (TPV) significantly reduced prescription errors compared to pharmacists. This strategy optimizes pharmacy practice, allowing pharmacists more time for direct patient care and improving safety.
Area of Science:
- Pharmacy Practice
- Medication Safety
- Health Services Research
Background:
- Optimizing pharmacy practice models is crucial for enhancing patient care.
- Elevating the role of pharmacy technicians can improve workflow efficiency.
- Pharmacists' expertise is best utilized in clinical care and patient counseling.
Purpose of the Study:
- To evaluate the accuracy of Technician Product Verification (TPV) compared to traditional pharmacist verification.
- To determine if TPV impacts patient safety in community pharmacies.
- To assess the potential for TPV to increase pharmacist availability for clinical services.
Main Methods:
- An audit of prescription accuracy was conducted, comparing pharmacist-verified prescriptions to those verified by Validated Pharmacy Technicians.
- A total of 12,891 baseline pharmacist-verified prescriptions and 27,447 Validated Pharmacy Technician-verified prescriptions were analyzed.
- Verification error rates were calculated and compared between the two groups.
Main Results:
- The aggregate verification error rate was 0.16% for pharmacist-verified prescriptions and 0.01% for Validated Pharmacy Technician-verified prescriptions.
- The mean error rate was significantly lower for TPV (0.03 ± 0.089%) compared to pharmacist verification (0.19 ± 0.174%), with p=0.020.
- Validated Pharmacy Technicians demonstrated higher accuracy in product verification than pharmacists.
Conclusions:
- Technician Product Verification (TPV) in community pharmacies maintains patient safety.
- Delegating product verification to trained technicians can free up pharmacist time for direct patient care.
- Increased pharmacist involvement in direct patient care has the potential to improve patient outcomes and overall pharmacy quality.
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