At Brigham and Women’s Faulkner Hospital, all pharmacy technicians are registered with the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, allowing them to work under the direct supervision of a licensed pharmacist to perform pharmacy-related functions. As of March 2019, they are all also Nationally Certified Technicians, which allows them to perform more duties as pharmacy technicians.
To obtain national pharmacy technician certification, pharmacy technicians must already be registered with the state and have worked a certain number of hours. They can then study for and take the Pharmacy Technician Certification Exam.
In Massachusetts, a new law will soon be going into effect requiring pharmacy technicians to be nationally certified in order to handle controlled substances. Upon learning this, Director of Pharmacy Services Brian Zikaras, PharmD, challenged all of his pharmacy technicians to become nationally certified.
“I am really proud of our pharmacy technicians. They all worked really to prepare for the exam,” says Zikaras. “National certification allows our pharmacy technicians, under their license, to do more than non-nationally certified pharmacy technicians. It also opens up new opportunities for them in the future.”
