Expanding the role of pharmacy technicians to facilitate a proactive pharmacist practice.

Purpose: This study describes a change in pharmacy practice to expand pharmacy technician roles to allow dispensing without a pharmacist check, thereby enhancing the pharmacist role in direct patient care.

Summary: In an effort to optimize patient care with limited resources, we set out to change our pharmacy practice model. We transferred duties that did not require clinical judgment in the dispensary from the pharmacist to the regulated technician. The transferred roles included order entry, order entry verification, and final check of medications and preparations. The changes in roles were well received by the pharmacy staff. The pharmacist practice changed from a reactive process, where the pharmacist waited for orders to be sent to the pharmacy, to a proactive process where the pharmacist collaborated directly with patients and the health care team. The pharmacists were able to provide daily medication therapy management for every inpatient in the new practice model compared with only reactive targeted care in the former practice model. Implementation of the new practice model at our site led to a reduction in time for medications to be delivered to the patient and reduced pharmacy-related medication errors.

Conclusion: A new pharmacy practice model was successfully implemented whereby the pharmacy technician roles were expanded to the point where they perform all the distribution roles in the dispensary. This, in turn, allowed a change in the pharmacist role, which was focused on daily proactive direct patient care and medication therapy management.