Summary
The Pharmacy Technician assists the Pharmacist in providing optimal care and timely service in accordance with the mission, vision, and goals of the EPVHCS and Pharmacy. The Pharmacy Tech accomplish all duties related to stocking, delivering, inventory, inspections, assembling ward orders, prescription assembly, controlled substances distribution, hazardous drugs, unit-dose drug ... packaging, dispensing, distribution, blister packaging nursing home medications, and other related functions.
This job is open to
• Internal to an agency
Current federal employees of this agency.
Clarification from the agency
This announcement is only open to (Current & Permanent) Employees of the El Paso VA Health Care System.
Videos
Duties
VA Careers - Pharmacy: https://youtube.com/embed/Fn_ickNBEws
Total-Rewards-of-an-Allied-Health-VA-Career-Brochure.pdf
Pharmacy Technician: vacareers.va.gov/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/Total-Rewards-of-a-Pharmacy-Technician-Career-Flyer.pdf
The Pharmacy Technician:
• Accurately interprets, fills, and prepares prescriptions with appropriate medications and or medical supplies for pharmacist verification.
• Maintains work areas in a clean and orderly condition by assuring that all stock and equipment are in assigned places and all shelves and counters are free of dust and debris to create optional work areas.
• Assures drugs and supplies are appropriately stored and secured according to USP and VA guidelines, including the storage of high-risk medications, look-alike and sound-alike medications, hazardous drugs, controlled substances, corrosive chemical, flammable liquids, and refrigerated items.
• Receives, checks, rotates, and places in stock all items received from pharmacy procurement section and identifies and reconciles any discrepancies to assure correct items have been received.
• Utilizes automation dispensing equipment available to the pharmacy staff following all safety and Quality Assurance procedures. Reports automation malfunctions timely the supervisor as appropriate
• Records expiration dates in the automatic prescription dispensing system upon receipt.
• Performs monthly inspections of assigned areas to ensure proper storage of medications and removal of soon to expire drugs. Completes inspection reports in compliance with regulatory requirements.
• Compounds and/or reconstitutes oral or external medications (non-sterile). This includes calculating and converting to proper weights and measuring the amount of drug or solution to be used for final pharmacist verification. Manufactures products requiring compounding, whether made in large batches for more than one patient or in small batches to fill a single prescription or drug order.
• Correctly interprets physician orders, selects, and measures appropriate ingredients, mixes ingredients in a safe and effective manner, inspects the final product for accuracy, labels the product, maintains records of the manufacturing process, and attains a final check by a pharmacist.
• Uses standard protocols to determine an accurate expiration date for each batch prepared.
• Proficiently operates equipment including but not limited to balances and mixing machines in the routing of manufacturing pharmaceutical products.
• Answers questions from pharmacy and non-pharmacy personnel regarding drug distribution.
• Identifies basic therapeutic problems, such as duplicate therapy with drugs in the same class and alerts the pharmacist to the possible need for clinical intervention.
• Assists in training and orientation of new staff technicians, interns, and students.
• Assumes an active role in the overall pharmacy-training program consisting of
• students, externs, interns, residents, and professional and non-professional staff members.
• Demonstrates the ability to work under a variety of circumstances to maximize group productivity and quality.
• Performs duties of all lower grade technicians as needed.
• Participates in performance improvement initiatives for pharmacy.
• Assists in quality improvement activities by participating in assessment and action teams that will improve service as assigned.
• Assists higher level technicians as needed.
• Completes all National, VISN, local, and Pharmacy mandatory trainings in a timely manner
Duties are continued in the Education Section of this announcement.
Work Schedule: Monday - Friday, 8 AM - 4:45 PM
Recruitment Incentive (Sign-on Bonus): Not Authorized
Permanent Change of Station (Relocation Assistance): Not Authorized
Paid Time Off: 37-50 days of annual paid time offer per year (13-26 days of annual leave, 13 days of sick leave, 11 paid Federal holidays per year)
Selected applicants may qualify for credit toward annual leave accrual, based on prior [work experience] or military service experience.
Parental Leave: After 12 months of employment, up to 12 weeks of paid parental leave in connection with the birth, adoption, or foster care placement of a child.
Child Care Subsidy: After 60 days of employment, full time employees with a total family income below $144,000 may be eligible for a childcare subsidy up to 25% of total eligible childcare costs for eligible children up to the monthly maximum of $416.66
Retirement: Traditional federal pension (5 years vesting) and federal 401K with up to 5% in contributions by VA
Insurance: Federal health/vision/dental/term life/long-term care (many federal insurance programs can be carried into retirement)
Telework: Not Available
Virtual: This is not a virtual position.
Functional Statement #: 000000
Permanent Change of Station (PCS): Not Authorized
Financial Disclosure Report: Not required
Requirements
Conditions of Employment
• You must be a U.S. Citizen to apply for this job.
• All applicants tentatively selected for VA employment in a testing designated position are subject to urinalysis to screen for illegal drug use prior to appointment. Applicants who refuse to be tested will be denied employment with VA.
• Selective Service Registration is required for males born after 12/31/1959.
• Must be proficient in written and spoken English.
• You may be required to serve a probationary period.
• Subject to background/security investigation.
• Selected applicants will be required to complete an online onboarding process.
• Participation in the seasonal influenza vaccination program is a requirement for all Department of Veterans Affairs Health Care Personnel (HCP).
• Participation in the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccination program is a requirement for all Veterans Health Administration Health Care Personnel (HCP) - See "Additional Information" below for details.
Qualifications
Basic Requirements:
• United States Citizenship: Non-citizens may only be appointed when it is not possible to recruit qualified citizens in accordance with VA Policy.
• English Language Proficiency: Must be proficient in written and spoken English
May qualify based on being covered by the Grandfathering Provision as described in the VA Qualification Standard for this occupation (only applicable to current VHA employees who are in this occupation and meet the criteria).
Grade Determinations:
Pharmacy Technician, GS-07.
Experience. Candidates must possess one year of experience equivalent to the next lower grade level.
Certification. For positions above the full performance level, the employee must pass a national certification exam and hold an active national certification through either:
(a) PTCB as a CPhT.
OR
(b) NHA as a ExCPT.
Knowledge, Skills and Abilities (KSAs). In addition to the experience above, the candidate must demonstrate all of the following KSAs:
(a) Knowledge of pharmacy technician principles, practices, concepts and theories providing for sound independent work.
(b) Knowledge of the computerized prescription process and input of prescriptions and medication orders or electronic equivalent.
(c) Ability to resolve pharmacy/medication issues with other members of the healthcare team, Veterans and external customers.
(d) Ability to train developmental pharmacy technicians and students.
(e) Ability to dispense medication or sterile products following all regulations, policies and procedures to ensure safe medication distribution.
(f) Ability to troubleshoot automated dispensing equipment (ADE) or technology platforms/databases.
Preferred Experiences:
-Outstanding customer service
-Extremely motivated
-Fast learner
-Ability to work with minimal supervision
References:
VA HANDBOOK 5005/159 PART II APPENDIX G28, Pharmacy Technician Qualification Standard Dated 11/07/2023.
This position is above the full-performance level (GS-6) for the Pharmacy Technician occupational series. The actual grade at which an applicant may be selected for this vacancy is GS-7.
Physical Requirements: There are no physical requirements for this position. Walking, standing, light lifting, and carrying, may be required to perform some of the functions of this position.
Education
Education may not be used to qualify for this position at the GS-7 level.
IMPORTANT: A transcript must be submitted with your application if you are basing all or part of your qualifications on education.
Note: Only education or degrees recognized by the U.S. Department of Education from accredited colleges, universities, schools, or institutions may be used to qualify for Federal employment. You can verify your education here: http://ope.ed.gov/accreditation/. If you are using foreign education to meet qualification requirements, you must send a Certificate of Foreign Equivalency with your transcript in order to receive credit for that education. For further information, visit: https://sites.ed.gov/international/recognition-of-foreign-qualifications/.
Duties Continued:
• Maintains national certification with PTCB or ExCPT
• Complies with all VHA, Medical Center, and Pharmacy regulations, directives, policies, and procedures.
• Works in other areas of pharmacy service as deemed necessary by the Chief, Pharmacy Service or Supervisor.
• Accurately interprets, fills, and readies prescriptions with appropriate medications for pharmacist verification.
• Appropriately restocks controlled substance items in automated secured
• cabinets throughout medical center, as assigned.
• Documents all controlled substance related transactions as indicated by VA and DEA guidelines.
• Assures that inventory counts are correct at the time of restocking.
• Ensures that proper handoff occurs when receiving or delivering controlled substances, always assuring that these medications are never left unsecured.
• Reports unresolvable discrepancies to immediate area supervisor for resolution. Assists in investigating, witnessing, and resolving discrepancies.
• Complies with all laws, regulations, directives, policies, and procedures applying to the dispensing, storage, transfer, inventory, and accountability of controlled substances.
• Provides proper documentations for all controlled substance that were claimed as lost from mail by the veterans. Initiates Issue Brief for each case to be reviewed by the supervisor.
• Assists inspectors with the inventory and accountability inspections.
• Monitors and analyzes orders and distribution patterns to identify questionable circumstances or unusual trends. Communicates potential
problems to the supervisor.
• Provides training of controlled substance process to new pharmacy technicians, pharmacists, inspectors.
• Assembles prescriptions properly with the correct drug, strength, quantity, auxiliary labels, and prescription labels. for window dispensing and mail delivery.
• Assures that the correct medication is filled by using bar code scanning on stock bottles.
• Supports automation by manually completing prescriptions not processed through the automation dispensing machines.
• Assures the timely completion of all prescriptions.
• Continuously monitors workflow through automatic dispensing devices and routinely calibrates cassettes to ensure the high performance, good quality, smooth workflow, and prevention of errors that occur during the normal operation of the system.
• Inventories and replenishes automated dispensing devices.
• Operates and performs routine maintenance as per automated system Quality Assurance guidelines to maintain high performance of the system and minimized down-time
• Develops skills to facilitate correction of the automated systems.
• Documents downtime problems, actions, and resolution.
• Notifies the procurement technician when running low of any supplies for the automated system.
• Verifies the patient's identification following the Medical Center's policies (i.e., double patient identifiers)
• Verifies that the patient receives the correct prescriptions by using VA software (i.e., VISTA and barcode scanning)
• Verifies that the patient has received all prescriptions (i.e., refrigerated, controlled substances, bulk medications, etc.)
• Utilizes and comprehends the mail shipping programs used by the facility (i.e., USPS, FedEx, UPS, etc.) for overnight delivery of non-controlled and controlled prescriptions.
• Performs searches, updates patient information, and generates shipping reports as requested by the supervisor.
• Calls patients to arrange delivery of refrigerated prescriptions and verifies patients address.
• Packages prescriptions appropriately, as to assure that packages are not damaged during transit (i.e., bubble wrap, ice blocks, insulated containers, etc.
• Utilizes VA software programs to check narratives and problem solves
deliveries for patients with no physical address.
• Responds to all CCC request
