Q&A: Creating a Pharmacy Where Technicians Can Thrive

Pharmacy technicians are crucial to patient care, yet often undervalued. Supporting their well-being through fair pay, advancement, and involvement in operational decisions improves safety, efficiency, and job satisfaction. Viewing technicians as long-term professionals, not temporary helpers, strengthens the entire pharmacy—something independent pharmacies often model better than large chains.

Q&A: Creating a Pharmacy Where Technicians Can Thrive / StratfordProductions - stock.adobe.com

Drug Topics recently sat down with Taylor Watterson, PharmD, PhD, assistant professor at the University of Illinois Chicago Retzky College of Pharmacy, to discuss what a truly inclusive and technician-centered pharmacy looks like, and what steps are needed to get there.

Drug Topics: What would a truly inclusive and technician centered pharmacy look like, and what steps are needed to get there?

Taylor Watterson, PharmD, PhD: Everything we do [in health care] needs to be patient centered. A lot of what we do revolves around the patient, and rightfully so. I often think about the triple aim that came out from IHI [Institute for Healthcare Improvement] that said that to provide quality patient care requires that we provide quality care, improve the patient experience and reduce costs. Taking a step back from that, we've realized very much that before doing any of that, before providing quality patient care, we first have to take care of the health care professional. That's what's led to the quadruple aim, which adds on all of that to say that health care worker well-being is fundamental and quintessential before we can think about anything else in providing health care. It often relates to the analogy of when you're flying on an airplane and you have to secure your mask before putting on someone else's. You have to make sure that you're good before taking care of other people.

I think that's step one, recognizing that for companies that in taking care of the people that work for them and their employees, they're actually servicing the patient. That comes down to some of the errors or opportunities for harm and threats to safety. You have to take care of the employee. I think to really engage pharmacy technicians, to have a more pharmacy technician-centered workforce, one of the big things is making the role of a pharmacy technician a career, not just a job. A lot of the pharmacy technicians that we talked to had say, “I did this because I didn't want to be a nurse, or because I'm in school, and this is a good way to be in the medical profession before I go to medical school or pharmacy school or whatever kind of school. This is my part time job that I'm doing on top of something else.” I've worked with plenty of teachers who are pharmacy technicians in the summer, and then go back to teaching in the fall. Part of that is the pay, but also because it is considered this very transient job, not a career. I think one of the big things that when we think about centering technicians will be making this a career. Some of that comes from increasing certifications, increasing pay, so that it can be someone's career. Increasing roles and responsibilities and all of that moves together.

I also think having pharmacy technicians be more engaged because they literally are the backbone of the pharmacy. They know more about how the pharmacy runs than the pharmacist does. We see the pharmacies that perform very well are the ones where technicians are very engaged on the day-to-day, from scheduling to inventory management. I was talking to a technician who said they were installing new computer systems, and the technician was the one who was there and instructing the IT folks about where to put the monitors and where to put the computer and where to put the printers so that it best fits with their workflow.

When we think about job design in general, it's super critical to have those technicians in the conversation when we're thinking about pharmacy design, pharmacy operations, what will work, what won't work? Because, as a pharmacist, we are trained to be clinical medication experts, which is great. I am not trained in business. The running joke was that I'm a part time pharmacist, part time printer-fixer. I'm not trained in any of that, and we're just trying to make it work. Having technicians have more of a role in both the design and operations of pharmacy is huge and I think will be huge when we think about going forward.

I think a lot of the independent pharmacies recognize this. It is their pharmacy technicians who are scheduling appointments, who are running a lot of the clinical services that they offer. I think a lot of the independent pharmacies have already recognized this. It's more so maybe the chains that are catching up. I think that that's crucial. All of that then raises up everything else in terms of their respect, in terms of how patients view them, in terms of what they're paid, in terms of getting people to want to work in pharmacy, in terms of improving safety, improving workload and work burden. I think there are a lot of things that rise up together, but as with anything, it's just having them involved in the conversation. Because they know things probably that I don't even know about what they want and what they need. So, we really just need to ask.

READ MORE: How Pharmacy Technician Burnout Impacts Patient Care

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