Meeting educational needs of pharmaceutical stakeholders : pharmaceutical operators

Abstract

Provision of effective pharmaceutical services is possible with an efficient pharmaceutical workforce through firm foundations in education and training. The pharmaceutical workforce is composed of individuals, professionals and non-professionals with varied skill sets. The changing roles of pharmacists focusing on patient-centred care contributed to the need of pharmaceutical support personnel to adopt additional roles. This study focused on pharmaceutical operators, consisting of storekeepers, drivers, delivery personnel, and support personnel assigned in inventory, preparation and summation of order, logistics, production, procurement, warehouse area and others. The aim of this study was to identify the educational needs of operators. A questionnaire was developed and validated by a panel and disseminated to pharmaceutical operators, managers and supervisors in different fields of pharmacy. The questionnaire included demographics as the first section. The second section comprised a list of training topics. Respondents identified the topics that had been received or provided and rated each topic according to its relevance to the operators’ practice. The questionnaire included statements towards training courses to which respondents evaluated according to the degree of agreement and identified their preferred methods of delivery of the courses. Results have shown that pharmaceutical operators gave high level of importance (mean = 5 using Likert scale 1-5) on 2 topics relating to medication-product knowledge and on computer systems, 6 topics on Good Distribution/Manufacturing Practice and one topic on personal and interpersonal skills. Managers/supervisors expressed high level of relevance on 6 topics under good distribution practices and one topic on patient safety, quality assurance and order entry and on personal and interpersonal skills. On-The-Job training was the most preferred training method, It ranked first to both pharmaceutical operators and managers/supervisors. It may be postulated that both groups place high relevance on experiential training. Managers/supervisors strongly agreed (mean = 4.4) on the idea that pharmaceutical operators have enough knowledge and skills to perform their duties, while pharmaceutical operators rated the same statement lower in comparison (mean = 3.7). Results suggest that managers and supervisors are confident on the abilities and skills of their pharmaceutical operators. It may be implicated that the operators had rated the notion in belief they are not equipped and competent enough to execute their roles. Understanding pharmaceutical operators’ perception of having training courses and identification of their educational needs present opportunities for operators to perform additional duties and responsibilities, empower them and possibly increase efficiency and best practices in operations.