Pharmacists

Tasks

Core Tasks Include:

• Review prescriptions to assure accuracy, to ascertain the needed ingredients, and to evaluate their suitability.
• Provide information and advice regarding drug interactions, side effects, dosage, and proper medication storage.
• Analyze prescribing trends to monitor patient compliance and to prevent excessive usage or harmful interactions.
• Order and purchase pharmaceutical supplies, medical supplies, or drugs, maintaining stock and storing and handling it properly.
• Maintain records, such as pharmacy files, patient profiles, charge system files, inventories, control records for radioactive nuclei, or registries of poisons, narcotics, or controlled drugs.
• Provide specialized services to help patients manage conditions, such as diabetes, asthma, smoking cessation, or high blood pressure.
• Advise customers on the selection of medication brands, medical equipment, or healthcare supplies.
• Collaborate with other health care professionals to plan, monitor, review, or evaluate the quality or effectiveness of drugs or drug regimens, providing advice on drug applications or characteristics.
• Compound and dispense medications as prescribed by doctors and dentists, by calculating, weighing, measuring, and mixing ingredients, or oversee these activities.
• Refer patients to other health professionals or agencies when appropriate.
• Plan, implement, or maintain procedures for mixing, packaging, or labeling pharmaceuticals, according to policy and legal requirements, to ensure quality, security, and proper disposal.
• Assess the identity, strength, or purity of medications.
• Teach pharmacy students serving as interns in preparation for their graduation or licensure.
• Contact insurance companies to resolve billing issues.

Supplemental Tasks Include:

• Prepare sterile solutions or infusions for use in surgical procedures, emergency rooms, or patients' homes.
• Assay radiopharmaceuticals, verify rates of disintegration, and calculate the volume required to produce the desired results, to ensure proper dosages.
• Manage pharmacy operations, hiring or supervising staff, performing administrative duties, or buying or selling non-pharmaceutical merchandise.
• Work in hospitals or clinics or for Health Management Organizations (HMOs), dispensing prescriptions, serving as a medical team consultant, or specializing in specific drug therapy areas, such as oncology or nuclear pharmacotherapy.
• Publish educational information for other pharmacists, doctors, or patients.
• Offer health promotion or prevention activities, such as training people to use blood pressure devices or diabetes monitors.
• Update or troubleshoot pharmacy information databases.

The data sources for the information displayed here include: O*NET™. (Using onet28)