Design of a training and qualification program for hospital pharmacy technicians in pharmacy-compounding sterile preparations

Hospital pharmacy technicians need specific skills to product the sterile preparations. It is in the respect of those needed skills that a complementary training program has been developed in order to enable the qualification of the pharmacy technicians.

The national reference skill database of the pharmacy technicians shows breakthroughs and gaps that highlight specific skills are necessary to the activity. Those expertises have been divided in theoretical and practical knowledges and gathered together in a special modular training program. A literature reviewed the tools to acquire and evaluate those skills. At last, an educational methodology has been formalized for each modular.

The 53 skills has been divided in a training program composed of 4 modules :

1. pharmacology and physiopathology,
2. environment, equipment and hygiene,
3. aseptic and implementation of a sterile preparation,
4. quality and risk management.

The tools are various : multimedia media (movies, quiz), games (playing cards), quality media, tutoring and simulation tests (media-fill test, fluorescein test, simulation of medication errors). The training was established over 3 weeks. A result of 80% validate the certification of the technicians.

This program formalize and codify the theory and practical approaches of the activity. Educational methdologies optimize and facilitate the process. The evaluation of the program would determine if it is adapted and transferable to other sterile drug production department. This program which is also adjustable could be extend to the continuing education of pharmacy technicians.