MAIN ROLE OF A PHARMACIST ASSISTANT IN OUT PATIENT PHARMACY IN HOSPITALS

Pharmacist assistant is also known as pharmacy technician. They are responsible for the dispensing and distribution of medicine under the supervision of a qualified pharmacist. Pharmacy Technicians do a variety of tasks such as preparing and dispensing prescribed medications for patients, perform compounding of medications, provide advice for non-prescription medications, inventory and track medication and supply orders, and follow up on payments and other administrative tasks.

Meanwhile, the out-patient pharmacy is the pharmacy that provides medication services and dispense drugs for patients who has been discharged from the inpatient units. The pharmacist speak to patients and family members to provide information about each new prescription. They also provide medication and drug counseling.

WORKFLOW CHART

There five major roles of pharmacist assistant. They are receiving and screening prescription, preparing labels and envelopes, fiiling medication, counterchecking medication ad lastly dispensing medication.

Firstly, they receive and screen the prescription. This is to check the prescription’s validity, completeness, appropriateness and accuracy. Then, to ensure drugs prescribed are in MOH Drug List and available or in stock at the hospital. However, they will contact prescriber if in doubt to reconfirm. Next, they will send the prescription for labeling.

Secondly, they prepare labels and envelopes for the medication. They prepare the labels  according to the prescription. Next, they will send the prescription and prepared envelopes for filling medications.
Thirdly, they fill the medications as they received prescription and labelled envelopes. However, extemporaneous preparation is done if necessary. Such as syrup preparations for pediatric. It is important to check the dose of the preparation to avoid medication error.

Fourthly, they must countercheck the filled medication. If there is any mistakes of accuracy of the medicines,they have to return it to the filling medications counter staff for rectification or correction. Mistakes can be done due to the hectic and clumsiness of the pharmacy assistants.

Fifthly, pharmacy technicians will dispense medications. They dispense the correct medication to the right patient. They will also ask the patient if they need more information on the medicines.

RESPONSIBILITY OF  ASSISTANT PHARMACY IN OUTPATIENT

•      Assistant Pharmacist

Outpatient pharmacy technicians assist pharmacists by filling in and distributing medication to patients. The technician will refer to the pharmacist any problems a specific medication might pose to a patient, for example.

•      Assisting Patients

The outpatient pharmacy technician also helps patients with prescription intake and pick up through the pharmacy window, conducts patients' transactions on a cash register and answers patients' prescription requests either through the window or on the phone.

•      Inventory

An outpatient pharmacy technician is also responsible for conducting daily inventory by checking drug supply, restocking shelves, rotating medicine on shelves and removing items that may have expired from shelves.

•      Deliverer

Sometimes an outpatient pharmacy technician will have to mail out prescriptions to patients or, depending on the patient's health condition, will have to deliver prescriptions personally to a patient's address.

•      Compound extemporaneous preparations

 Extemporaneous preparations is drug or combination of drugs prepared or compounded in a pharmacy according to a prescription. Examples of extemporaneous preparations are ophthalmic solution, antibiotics syrup such as ampicillin syrup and topical preparations such as calamine lotion.

•      Inventory maintenance

Pharmacy technicians will check the stocks and the expired date of the drugs. They also need to order the drugs from the suppliers.

CONCLUSION

•      Pharmacist Assistant play an important role in out-patient pharmacy. This is because they help the pharmacists to spend time in counseling the patients.

•      They also help to minimize the medication errors and mistakes while compounding and dispending medication.

•      Therefore, the staff in out-patient pharmacy can perform excellent performances.