Inpatient Certified Pharmacy Technician

Primary Location:

University Hospital - UMC

Address:

530 South Jackson Street
Louisville, KY 40202


Shift:

Varied (United States of America)

Job Description Summary:

UofL Health is a fully integrated regional academic health system with five hospitals, four medical centers, nearly 200 physician practice locations, more than 700 providers, the Frazier Rehab Institute and Brown Cancer Center.
With more than 12,000 team members—physicians, surgeons, nurses, pharmacists and other highly skilled health care professionals—UofL Health is focused on one mission: delivering patient-centered care to each and every patient each and every day.

Job Description:

The Inpatient Certified Pharmacy Technician provides daily supportive services for the Department of Pharmacy according to hospital policies and procedures and in compliance with Kentucky pharmacy laws and other regulatory agencies. The technician actively supports and participates in the department’s continuous quality improvement initiatives and competency assessments and demonstrates a commitment to customer service and patient safety. The technician responds to requests in a prompt and efficient manner. Major job responsibilities include: distributes medications, including controlled substances, to a secure place for storage or administration, restocks automated dispensing cabinets (ADC), compounds sterile and non-sterile products, communicates with hospital staff, completes inspections, and reports unsafe practices to leadership.

Essential Functions:

Provides supportive services to the inpatient pharmacy

• Assists with filling, processing, and dispensing of medications by labeling medication, including bulk supplies, with proper ancillary labeling and bagging procedures, with final check performed by a pharmacist

• Answers phones according to established phone etiquette and triages calls to the proper personnel
• Charges and/or credits patients for medications used via the computer system
• Accurately and efficiently unit doses medications, including cleaning the compounding area, restocking and replacing supplies, documenting in the compounding record, and ensuring doses are correctly labeled and prepared for pharmacist verification
• Prepares medications for loading into the ADC and unloads medications from the ADC utilizing bar code scanning
• Fills inventory requests for nursing unit’s ADCs, floor stock, and fills patient specific drawers by placing the proper bins according to census profile
• Supports the drug inventory process including ordering, rotation, and restocking of drug dispensing areas with drugs and supplies needed to process patient medications orders
• Ensures the maintenance of a clean and orderly work area, including a sterile environment
• Completes nursing unit and inventory inspections, as assigned; restocks kits and crash cart trays, as required
• Fills controlled substance orders, reconciles all discrepancies and closes all loops on a daily basis
• Monitors medication activity for potential drug diversion and reports any discrepancies to the pharmacist or pharmacy leadership
• Delivers medications, including controlled substances, to nursing units’ ADC as scheduled and for emergent deliveries as necessary
• Assists with ensuring medications are delivered efficiently and accurately to patient care unit areas. Includes checking the tube system with each delivery, retrieving and transporting medications to the appropriate location
• Prepares and packages hazardous medications and adheres to all safety measures for handling hazardous medications described in USP 795/797/800
• Utilizes aseptic technique following department policies and procedures when compounding sterile products

Serves as a mentor to new pharmacy technicians, pharmacy technician students, and pharmacy students

• Provides guidance to certified pharmacy technicians and IPPE pharmacy student rotations, as necessary
• Precepts pharmacy technician students

Executes hospital and pharmacy policies and procedures

• Investigates and resolves automated dispensing cabinet-related issues
• Utilizes inventory management system and carousels to resolve drug distribution related issues
• Covers assigned shifts as determined by departmental need
• Facilitates investigational drug studies with assistance of the pharmacist and/or other personnel involved in the drug study
• Completes sterile compounding training, including hazardous medications, and demonstrate competency on a frequency defined by the Sterile Compounding Supervisor
• Completes extemporaneous compounding training, including hazardous medications, and demonstrate competency on a frequency defined by pharmacy leadership
• Participates in orientation of new staff members
• Contributes to the development of policies and procedures as requested by pharmacy leadership

Other Functions:

• Achieves and maintains satisfactory working relationships with pharmacy leadership, pharmacy staff, and other departments throughout the system
• Attends departmental staff meetings
• Performs tasks under the supervision of all pharmacists and pharmacy leadership; reports to the Inpatient Pharmacy Supervisor or Sterile Compounding Supervisor
• Adheres to Pharmacy Services Agreement

• Maintains compliance with all company policies, procedures and standards of conduct
• Complies with HIPAA privacy and security requirements to maintain confidentiality at all times
• Performs other duties as assigned

Additional Job Description:

Education:

• High School Diploma or GED/ equivalent (required)
• Completion of a formal Pharmacy Technician educational program and/or an Associate’s degree (preferred)

Experience:

• One (1) year of pharmacy technician experience (preferred)

Licensure:

• Registered as a pharmacy technician with the Commonwealth of Kentucky (required)

Certification:

• Current Board certification by Pharmacy Technician Certification Board or National Healthcare Association (required)
  • Note: Certification not required for second year students and/or licensed pharmacy interns