The Pharmacy Technician

The pharmacy technician must not only be precise in the

manual aspects of filling the prescription order, but also

must provide the patient with the necessary information

and guidance to ensure the patient's compliance in taking

the medication properly. Because medication errors can

occur commonly, technicians must also be familiar with

the parts of prescriptions, drug labels, and the processing

of drug orders. Often, the pharmacist or technician will receive

Physicians usually must personally sign or write medication

orders, but verbal orders may be allowed when it is impossible

or impractical for the prescriber to write the order or

enter it via computer. This is usually the case if an order is to

be carried out very quickly. The recipient of such an order

should immediately write down the order and read it back

to the prescriber to ensure clarity of the order. The spelling

of uncertain drugs should be checked with the prescriber.

Verbal orders may lead to medication errors when the orders

are not transmitted clearly. With the number of similarsounding

patients or similar-sounding drugs available, it is

easy to misunderstand a verbal order. A written copy of the

order should be placed in the pharmacy's prescription file or

the patient's medical record. Hospital pharmacies routinely

require the prescriber to confirm verbal orders by signature.

The use of verbal orders should be avoided in chemotherapy

prescribing because of the complexity of these orders and

the potentially lethal impact of mistakes with these drugs.

limit acceptance medication

orders to registered pharmacists. pharmacy

policy should be determine role, technicians may play in accepting verbal orders.

Stat is an abbreviation used on prescriptions and

other medical orders. It is derived statim,

which means "immediately." in 15 minutes,

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