Pharmacy is a division or practice of medicine that mainly deals with the manufacture, distribution, preparation and sale of therapeutic and pharmaceutical products. It is an administrative division or department of a hospital, nursing home or other medical establishment. The scope of pharmacy is vast because it involves all the activities involved in the administration of medical preparations and products. It encompasses a vast area of responsibilities and includes supervision, research, education and treatment of individuals as well as the preparation and packaging of products for marketing. This involves the creation of drug products by drug manufactures, alteration of drug products to conform to medical specifications and sales of pharmaceutical products to the end-users.
Two Entities:
In Country Like United States, pharmacy has been divided into two main entities – pharmacy technicians employed under the supervision of a pharmacist and home care pharmacy technicians and employed under the supervision of a physician. Over the last few years, the demand for pharmacists has been on the rise whereas the supply of licensed nurses has been decreasing steadily. As a result, there has been a significant increase in the ratio of population seeking for a pharmacy technician than for a pharmacy technician. There are many pharmacy technicians who have obtained formal education and training in various institutions but not everyone who wants to be a pharmacy technician can get a job as a pharmacy technician. It is therefore important for you to make sure that you get training from a recognized and approved college for pharmacy technicians.
Ones who are employed at hospitals generally work in hospitals’ clinical pharmacy or in the pharmacy departments of pharmacies located in nursing homes. But pharmacists who want to recruit students to become pharmacy technicians at local, state and national levels are increasingly hiring students who have completed accredited courses and are registered with pharmacy schools or are eligible under other criteria such as completion of a pharmacy technician certification. You may think that applying to a hospital pharmacy or a community pharmacy is a very easy process. However, the process actually involves a lot of and you will probably need to wait for several weeks to receive an invitation. The pharmacist may work under a different name at a hospital than he does at a community pharmacy.
Many pharmacists prefer working at a hospital pharmacy since it offers better remuneration especially if the nurse works part time. However, many community pharmacists work at home care pharmacies. In case you are looking for a pharmacy job at home care pharmacy, you will have to complete a clinical skills assessment in order to qualify for this job category.
There are some pharmacists who work only at home health care facilities. They work in nursing homes and long-term care centers, where they supervise the daily activities of pharmacists as well as other staff members. This is a good pharmacy job because the duties may be similar to those of a pharmacy technician. Some of the duties of a pharmacy technician at a long-term care center include, but are not limited to, stocking the inventory, preparing the prescriptions, advising patients about drug safety, conducting routine patient examinations, transferring patients from one floor to another and answering the telephone calls. On the other hand, the job description of a home care pharmacy manager includes but is not limited to, scheduling appointments, greeting patients, taking vital signs, ordering supplies, organizing equipment and billing the patient’s insurance company. The pharmacy manager should also be able to coordinate with other pharmacy staff at the long-term care facility.
Consulting pharmacy involves providing consultation to pharmacists and other health care professionals on a weekly or monthly basis. Consultations may involve questions regarding prescription plans, reimbursement policies, patient education, etc. Compounding pharmacies involve the transfer of products from one pharmacy to another. A compounding pharmacy involves the combining of various components in accordance with the instructions on the labels. A consulting pharmacy involves the dispensing of medication by a pharmacist on a walk-in basis. Both consulting and compounding pharmacies are considering low income businesses.
