Tuesday, October 20: Pharmacy Technician Day

As part of National Pharmacy Week, on Tuesday, October 20 we specifically recognize our pharmacy technicians.  Did you know Carilion Clinic’s inpatient pharmacies dispenses more than 500,000 medication doses per month, including approximately 1,500 intravenous medications per day?  Our pharmacy technicians work tirelessly behind the scenes to make sure these medications are prepared and available for nurses and providers to administer to their patients!  In addition to medication preparation and delivery, our technicians also work hard to support our pharmacists in many other ways.  These include:

• Triaging unit or patient-specific requests
• Completing medication histories
• Alerting our staff to possible drug shortage concerns so they can be addressed in advance
• Reviewing medication safety reports
• Completing important auditing tasks required for controlled substance medications
• Preparing chemotherapy medications