Adding pharmacy technicians to primary care teams helps manage medication access

Original Research

Adding Pharmacy Technicians to Primary Care Teams Helps Manage Medication Access 

Background and Goal: This study examined whether adding pharmacy technicians to primary care teams relieved clinicians and nurses of medication-access tasks and improved perceptions of burden, quality of care and patient access.

Study Approach: Researchers conducted a retrospective, mixed-methods study one year after deploying five primary care pharmacy technicians across 11 clinics in a large urban safety-net network. They analyzed electronic health records (EHR) from June 2023 to May 2024 to track the number and type of medication tasks the technicians handled. Clinic staff were surveyed. The survey included a 0 to 10 “pain point” rating of medication access work before and after technician deployment; estimated hours saved per month; perceived impact on work experience, quality of care and patient access, and open-ended responses.

Main Results:

• In 12 months, five pharmacy technicians handled 43,782 medication items (65% refills, 18% medication problems, 17% prior authorizations).

• Average ratings of “medication access work as a pain point” (0 to 10 scale) decreased from 8.3 before to 3.6 after pharmacy technician deployment.

• Themes from open-ended questions described pharmacy technicians dealing with prior authorizations, communicating with pharmacies, timely medication access for patients, expertise of pharmacy technicians, and reduced task burden/ greater efficiency.

Why It Matters: The findings from this study suggest pharmacy technicians can be an asset for team- based primary care, bringing expertise in efficiently managing medication access processes that benefits clinician and nurse work experience and patient access to medications.

Permanent link: Impact of Pharmacy Technicians on Clinician and Nurse Work Experience in Primary Care I

Anusha McNamara, Pharm D, et al

San Francisco Department of Public Health, San Francisco, California