Episode 2: Interviews from PTEC

During episode 2, host Jeremy Sasser and co-host Jessica Langley, executive director for education and advocacy at NHA, dive into the world of pharmacy technician education, featuring interviews with Ann Barnes, executive director of the Pharmacy Technician Educators Council (PTEC) at the 2019 annual conference. Langley also caught up with Michelle Hill, a certified pharmacy technician to get her take on PTEC as well as opportunities for pharm techs.

About the Pharmacy Technician Educators Council (PTEC)

PTEC is the only national not-for-profit professional association founded by pharmacy technician educators, for pharmacy technicians educators. For over 20 years, PTEC has worked with national, state, and local professional associations and education providers to promote a single standard for pharmacy technician education. While other organizations may exist, we are the longest running and most established in the industry.

Ann Barnes, Pharm.D., executive director, Pharmacy Technician Educators Council

Ann Barnes has been the executive director of the Pharmacy Technician Educators Council (PTEC) since 2017. Her first job as a teenager was in a pharmacy at 16 years old as a technician, and she fell in love with the world of pharmacy. After 15 years in daily pharmacy practice as a pharmacist, she stepped into the world of pharmacy technician education and found a new calling.

Michelle Hill, CPhT

Michelle Hill is the 2019 Teacher of the Year and Rick Perkins Award winner at West Georgia Technical College (WGTC). Michelle has over 18 years of healthcare experience including 9 years in pharmacy technician education, a Master's degree in Public Health from Augusta University and serves as the Pharmacy Technology program chair at WGTC, during which she managed and oversaw a quarter-million-dollar lab and classroom renovation project; she also developed and expanded course offerings to include a certificate diploma and degree awards.  Michelle loves sharing about her career on LinkedIn and often sums up her career by saying when you do what you love, everything falls in place.

Full Transcript of Episode 2

Speaker 1:
You're listening to the Pharmacy Podcast Network. 

Speaker 2:
This is OnScript, hosted by Jeremy Sasser, a podcast publication partnership between the Pharmacy Podcast Network and National Health Career Association.

Speaker 2:
Our podcast is dedicated to providing the pharmacy technician workforce with News, real life stories and discussions that can impact personal and professional growth. Here is certified pharmacy technician and National Health Career Association content strategist. Your host, Jeremy Sasser. Let's get OnScript with NHA.

Jeremy S.:
Pharmacy Podcast Nation. This is Jeremy Sasser, the host of the new Pharmacy Podcast OnScript powered by NHA. NHA is the National Health Career Association, and they are the providers of the ExCPT certification exam for pharmacy technicians, but they are so much more. 

Jeremy S.:
NHA does a lot of work with advocacy of the technician workforce. They provide tools to help educators and employers alike, train pharmacy technicians, and they're constantly looking at ways to innovate and be better partners for pharmacy technicians across the US and provide more things of value for pharmacy technicians as they learn to be pharmtechs, become certified pharmtechs, and then what their career path looks like after that.

Jeremy S.:
I am thrilled to take a moment to introduce the co-host of this podcast, Jessica Langley. Jessica Langley is the executive director of Education Markets here at NHA, and she does a phenomenal job of staying on top of the regulatory space for pharmacy technicians as well as our other allied health careers. And just being a great partner and a great advocate for really being the voice for the pharmacy technician out there in the world. So Jessica, welcome. 

Jessica L.:
Thanks Jeremy. Super excited to be here. Hopefully I'll get an opportunity to kind of guest or co-host on multiple episodes so you all may get familiar or hear my voice more often.I'm excited to be here. 

Jessica L.:
I've been with NHA for about six years, and as Jeremy mentioned, I'm the executive director of Education and Advocacy for NHA. So I'm out and about always collaborating and learning from industry leaders and stakeholders across the country and across the professions that NHA serves. For 20 years have been a clinician, allied health professional myself, spend about 12 years in allied health education. I've kind of gone through your pains, with you all and then happy to everyday be able to fight for and advocate for allied health professionals. 

Jeremy S.:
Fantastic. And speaking of education, today we're going to be talking a little bit about an organization. You just went to their national conference that they hold annually last week and got some really good feedback. But before we get there one of the things that we'd like to do here at the OnScript Podcast is throw out a phrase of the day or word of the day, either way. Just so that our listeners have something to think about as we're talking about the various subjects that we will be talking about.

Jeremy S.:
So today's phrase of the day, or maybe I should say acronym of the day, is PTEC, P-T-E-C. And that stands for the Pharmacy Technician Educators Counsel. So Jessica, in the education space, briefly what is PTEC, and what are they doing for the technician workforce? 

Jessica L.:
Right. So I was lucky to have the opportunity to spend a few days, a couple of weeks ago in San Antonio with the group of pharmacy technician educators at their annual conference as you mentioned. As a fellow allied health educator, I always love being able to go to these specific meetings where I can kind of be around that peer group because there's just a ton of excitement and passion from these individuals when they're the ones that spend every day really training and educating the future, right? That next generation of allied health professionals and they are just really good and engaging group of people.

Jessica L.:
As you mentioned, PTEC, Pharmacy Technician Educators Council, they support and empower educators in the education and training of pharmacy technicians, and their annual conferences really dedicated to just that, providing best practices, tools and techniques, to really help these pharmacy technician practitioners become educators, because that's really not their first career and their first job, right? They did this profession first and became educators second. So anything that we can do to help lift them up and be better in the classroom and better for the individuals that their training is always really great to see. 

Jeremy S.:
Yeah, that's a great point. I mean they bring a high level of expertise, but sometimes translating that high level of expertise and knowledge into a way that others can learn from can be challenging. As you mentioned, we both have firsthand experience of moving from the clinicians space or practice to education. It feels like a lifetime ago when I did it, but I wish I was a little bit more plugged into an organization like theirs, during the time that I was teaching. But, so Jessica, I know that you had some time at this conference to sit down and interview some members and as well as the executive director of PTEC, but over the few days that you were there, like kind of what were the main goals? What were the overriding themes?

Jessica L.:
Yeah, so I think one is to really recognize that PTEC, as an organization support certification for pharmacy technicians. They think that's the minimum requirement to practice in the profession. They also support ASHP/ACPE, Accredited Technician Training Programs. 

Jessica L.:
Predominantly, most of their programs are in post-secondary educational institutions. They also support both regionally and nationally accredited organizations, but as we know, there's multiple pathways to become a technician. Formal education is one of them, employer on the job, training, military experience, and then also, career and TechEd, and CTE, which we've seen really an uptake in. They are definitely supportive of high quality education standards. They also recognize that the industry is changing, which this was really exciting to see. They want to make sure that they help pharmacy technicians be better trained to assume these new roles, duties and responsibilities that are kind of being brought down on them. As the pharmacy profession expands and that pharmacist get to deliver more patient care services, the technicians also become elevated to take over some of those other duties and we really refer that to everyone in the healthcare space performing to the top of their license or the top of their credential, which is good to see them support that as well.

Jeremy S.:
Sure. So it's really about elevating the industry as a whole. I mean, you can't fill one void by one profession being elevated to a level without bringing everybody up a level to kind of backfill or fill that void that may be left. So yeah, I mean, as pharmacists are providing more direct patient care services, prescriptions still have to be filled, refills still have to be checked. So we are seeing the emergence of a lot of a community pharmacy, tech check tech programs. More states are allowing that and both institutional and community pharmacy settings. And then you of course, you have a state like Idaho that a few years back, went with what they coined Permissionless Innovation, which essentially says it's the pharmacist clinical knowledge and judgment that allows them to delegate, that they see fit to the pharmacy technicians that they... and they're really in the best position working shoulder to shoulder with them every day, to know what level of training they have, and what their capabilities are, and even what they ultimately want to do. But to pass those tasks onto them, like immunizing, checking prescriptions, taking verbal prescriptions over the phone. 

Jeremy S.:
It's an exciting time for the industry for sure. And no doubt can be challenging in the education space to be knowing exactly what the technicians or technicians to be rather, I guess, need to be learning and need to know for their respective state when they get out to practice. 

Jessica L.:
Right. And it was also really great to hear directly from the PTEC Board and some of their active members. So I had the chance to sit down with their executive director, Ann Barns and a couple of active members and they really just kind of share their viewpoints on the current initiatives and efforts regarding technician education and advancement and had some really great things to say.

Jeremy S.:
Great. Let's take a listen to that. 

Jessica L.:
All right. This is Jessica Langley, executive director of Education and Advocacy for NHA and I'm super excited to be attending the annual PTEC Conference in beautiful San Antonio, Texas this week. We thought it would be an amazing experience for our listeners to get an inside look at PTEC and what they're doing. And the impact that they have on the pharmacy technician profession. 

Jessica L.:
So today, I'm happy to be sitting with Ann Barnes, the executive director of PTEC and we're going to dive in a little bit and talk about this year's conference and what is most exciting for her. 

Ann Barnes:
Thank you. I'm excited to be here.

Ann Barnes:
So this year's conference in San Antonio has been a wonderful experience so far. We are offering 12 and a half hours of continuing education credit, as well as an opportunity to interact with our vendors and our industry partners and technician education, as well as we hosted a bootcamp that was just a networking workshop for educators to share ideas about accreditation and on building their programs and how to sustain their programs, how to create new and innovative ideas in their classrooms. 

Ann Barnes:
So this conference is always exciting. It always has a new twist every year. We always have ASHP and ACPE, actually ACPE joined us the first time, ASHP is here are routinely. We invited ACPE to join us this year. so Lisa Lifshin and Jeff Wadelin, with their respective agencies have been here to give us an update on accreditation standards and where those are going. Particularly of interest this year is the new entry level versus advanced level standards as well as crosswalk, how those integrate with each other, what that means for accreditation and re-accreditation. 

Ann Barnes:
So lots of information there. PTCB regularly joins us. We're happy that NHA has joined us this year to give updates from their perspectives on pharmacy technician certification and exam process as well as we have a host of other educators, basically telling us what they do in their classrooms, what is their best practice, where do they find effective teaching methods, what works, what doesn't work. To share ideas and just to try to encourage our membership in making technician education not only effective but engaging, fun if you will. 

Ann Barnes:
As our technician population changes, how we teach them has to change. We usually have a lot of sessions surrounding technology in the classroom, as we are looking not only at technology in the actual simulation parts of our programs, but also in the fact that we have a lot of programs that are developing online content. We have several representatives that are from completely online programs. And so we just try to hit a broad variety of topics that we feel like are impactful to our educators and therefore the technicians that we're educating. 

Jessica L.:
So great. And I know I've been to this conference now twice and it's always a joy to get around the academia folks. It's kind of in my wheel house and where I came from. So it's always great conversations to go back to your roots.

Jessica L.:
Now something you mentioned when we talk about the role or the profession of pharmacy technicians advancing, and people are really starting to look at it a little more deeply now. Tell me more about the importance of PTEC and the role that it plays in training and educating individuals when we really want to put medication safety and patient care at the center of what those technicians are focused on. 

Ann Barnes:
Absolutely. So patient safety is first and foremost. You've probably heard conversations that have talked about the lack of structure around technicians as a profession. There's a wide variation from state to state of what constitutes a pharmacy technician. And that also encompasses not only who and what is a pharmacy technician, but also the educational requirements. 

Ann Barnes:
So our goal at PTEC is to try to help bridge some of those gaps. We want to help our educators not only be better in the classroom, but we also want to be able to help them advocate for the profession. To advocate not only for the profession as a technician or... we have a lot of our folks that are pharmacists also, but to advocate for the students that they are teaching precepting and that they are trying to create a career for them, that they are working with them as a mentor.

Ann Barnes:
We are very much about trying to create networks, create connections, and to empower, to give as much background and knowledge as we can because there's so little emphasis put on a pharmacy technician. And within that lack of structure around the profession and the variation between states, we often talk about that there are other professions that have much more stringent guidelines, that have comparatively very little effect on their outcome. And we all know that one wrong move could be a patient's life when you're talking about medications. If the IB is prepared and correctly, if the wrong drug is in the bottle, if the label is not clear in the instructions, it only takes one misstep for there to be a grave outcome. And we can put all of the mechanisms in place and we can think it's as foolproof as possible. But that doesn't mean that it's always a hundred percent effective.

Jessica L.:
We're human, right? 

Ann Barnes:
Absolutely. We're human. And so one of the things that we see education being so vitally important is that, the more education that technician has, the more comfortable they are in their job and the less likely they are to make a careless mistake. They are human. We're all human. The mistakes are going to happen, but they're less likely to make a careless mistake. They're also more likely to catch not only their own mistake, but to also feel empowered to question and say, this doesn't look appropriate. Why are we doing it this way? Why is this important? As opposed to just saying, well, this is what I was told to do, so I'm just going to do it this way. And that may or may not be correct.

Ann Barnes:
So it is truly about that whole continuum of the education feeding into so many different aspects. And once again, bridging gaps, trying to ultimately have a positive impact on patient safety. 

Jessica L.:
Right. I completely agree with you. We know that, it's been 40 years or so that this conversation has been happening about elevating not only the role of pharmacists to be seen more as providers in their communities, because individuals have such greater access to their neighborhood or their local pharmacy, than they may be due to their primary care provider. 

Jessica L.:
You mentioned that in doing that there're many types of organizations and national associations and even grassroots advocacy campaigns to elevate pharmacists right now. But the comment you made about putting a little emphasis or a little bit of emphasis is only put on technicians versus what should be, and should we be pulling those pharmtechs up alongside pharmacists in order to create the change that we want. 

Jessica L.:
So tell me a little bit about, kind of with that being said, where you think the technician profession is going and how others can help, kind of bridge those gaps that you're talking about. 

Ann Barnes:
So our technicians are invited to be a part of national and state organizations. However, if you look at the volume or the percentage of involvement, it's fairly low. And if you look at what they offer, if you're at a national convention or even a state level convention and you look at what they're offering as far as education and they've got 10 sessions, there may be one of those that's related to technicians and the other nine are focused on pharmacists. 

Ann Barnes:
So they're kind of the forgotten in the some ways. And I would always tell my technicians on classroom, I'd say, you can make or break a pharmacist. And even when I took, I opened a new pharmacy at one point in my career and they asked me, they said, "Do you want a second pharmacist or do you want two full time technicians?" 

Ann Barnes:
And I said, "Two full time technicians." And they said, "What, we've never had anybody to say that." And I was like, oh no, no, no, no, no. I said, "I'd much rather have two well trained technicians full time." I said, "They are the heart and soul of this pharmacy." They are typically the first person in the last person in the community pharmacy and not too different than a hospital pharmacy, that the customer sees.

Ann Barnes:
I said, you can put any pharmacists in a pharmacy and if they are surrounded by good technicians that have excellent communication skills and interact with those patients well and or even the hospital staff, the nursing staff. That can be... it doesn't matter who the pharmacist is, because I technician is who keeps that pharmacy running. They are the glue. And so I'm very passionate about how important that role is. 

Ann Barnes:
I think that there were so many opportunities for technicians and we see pockets of that going on around the country. And we have states where now where we're seeing technicians starting to immunize, we have states where it's being proposed to let technicians actually prescribed Narcan and Naloxone products. 

Ann Barnes:
So those types of opportunities exist in pockets. And what we want to see is that for that to be widespread, people often think, oh, you're a technician because you can't get into pharmacy school. And that's so not true. There are so many people that choose to be a technician because that's where their passions lie. And it's not that they couldn't be a pharmacist and it's not anything related to that, they chose not to be. And so to inhibit them in that grows and inhibit where they could take this profession. I guess it's disappointing, is the best way to put it. 

Ann Barnes:
There are just so many opportunities there. We are seeing technicians move into other areas such as working in insurance and billing and coding and prior authorizations. Those are areas that technicians are fabulous at, because they understand not only the medications, but they understand that patient component, and it just creates a great opportunity.

Ann Barnes:
So what we want to do is to help these educators prepare their students to take on these new roles. And to look into these other areas and to find those pockets and increase them so that they're not just pockets of new opportunity and that they're widespread. 

Jessica L.:
Well, we very much appreciate PTEC having us here this year at the conference, and we invite you to join along in our advocacy campaigns and, some of the efforts that we're working on to empower people to access a better future as well. So thanks and good luck with the show.

Ann Barnes:
Thank you.

Jessica L.:
And with everything else. We appreciate you joining us. 

Ann Barnes:
Thank you so much. We're so glad that you could be with us and we look forward to having you join us next year. Can't say where are you quite yet, but we'll be looking for you then. 

Jessica L.:
Great. Sounds good.

Ann Barnes:
Thank you so much.

Jessica L.:
Hallo, all of you OnScript Podcast listeners. We're happy to bring you another session of OnScript with NHA through the Pharmacy Podcast Network and we're having a really good time just sharing stories about individuals that are making a difference within the pharmacy profession. And I'm excited to be here today with Michelle Hill, who is the pharmacy technician, program director for West Georgia Technical College. Thanks so much Michelle, for being here. 

Michelle HILL:
Thank you for having me.

Jessica L.:
You bet. So I just want you to share with our listeners really your story about why you became a pharmacy technician and where your kind of career path has led you. 

Michelle HILL:
Okay. Well, I started off in the pharmacy field a long time ago. I was working for Eckerd Drugs.

Jessica L.:
I recognize that name.

Michelle HILL:
Yes. Basically I started off working in the front, and I saw the pharmacy personnel and it looks so interesting, and I became intrigued on what they actually did. So I eventually matriculate my way back to the pharmacy, work as a clerk. 

Michelle HILL:
But that first pharmacy where I started out at, they weren't very supportive of me becoming a technician. And the pharmacist, exact words, he said, "You'll never be certified and I'll never train you."

Jessica L.:
Talk about deflating. 

Michelle HILL:
Yes. Or motivating.

Jessica L.:
Either way. 

Michelle HILL:
Yes.

Jessica L.:
Glass half full or glass half empty. Definitely.

Michelle HILL:
So I took that as a hint that maybe I should move on. From there I moved on to a different pharmacy, Kroger Pharmacy. And I met a pharmacist who is phenomenal, Bow Zimmerman. And he really...

Jessica L.:
Shout out there.

Michelle HILL:
Yes, because he changed my life for the better, and he really was a great mentor and encouraged me and supported me to obtain my certification, which I did. And I became certified back in 2003. And then from Kroger, I went to the hospital system. I worked for Grady Hospital. From the hospital system, I also worked for Long-term Care, and I also from Long-term Care, I transitioned back to retail. And then from retail, I went into education, which is where I am now. So I started out with a private for profit school. And then I later transitioned to West Georgia Technical College, which is a nonprofit technical college in the state of Georgia. I call it the scenic route. It's not the traditional path, but I wouldn't change anything about it. 

Jessica L.:
I think pharmacy technicians, I know in my allied health profession, I never pictured or thought of myself as going into education. And when you think across different healthcare professions, I don't think people think of that as a natural career pathway. So what was it about education or what would you tell pharmacy when they're thinking about what's the next step for me or the potential of going and becoming an educator in a profession that they already love if they're working in the field? 

Michelle HILL:
Well, I worked as a lead tech in several other pharmacies that I worked in, and I didn't realize it at the time, but that was an educator role with training and teaching. And so it really felt natural when I was approached about teaching for a pharmacy technician program, but it's something that I felt like chose me. I genuinely love what I do. I have a canvas that says when you do what you love, everything falls into place.

Michelle HILL:
So this is the prime time for pharmacy technicians to look at those expanded roles and look at opportunities within education. Because even within the pharmacy technician educators council, there's so many different types of pharmacy technician educators, whether it's for a university system, or a technical college,

Michelle HILL:
or whether it's for our hospital, or whether it's for a distance learning or online. There's so many different avenues. So I would say, definitely stay connected if you're looking to venture into some of these different roles and venture into education. Stay connected within your community volunteer to be on an advisory board or something of that nature. So you can have a seat at the table with the people who are in the position that you want to be in. 

Jessica L.:
As a pharmacy technician professional and an educator and allied health professional, we're seeing more and more attention kind of being brought a little bit down to the level of advancing, whether it be a pharmacy technician, a pharmacist, or even other allied health professionals. What would you say to your fellow peers about the advancing profession and what can they do to help support that? 

Michelle HILL:
I think one of the best things we can do is be proactive and not reactive. Don't wait until some type of directive comes down from executive level management, but be proactive in terms of making sure that you're keeping your skills fresh, making sure you're increasing your employability, when you have the opportunity to pursue continuing education even beyond what's required for your certification or for your state credentials, pursue it if there is a pilot program that you can take on, pursue it. But really just staying proactive on top of the trends, having foresight, having vision anticipating what the next move might be and then pursuing that as it aligns with your passions. Because if you couple your vision or your perception, with your passion along with your skillset, in the knowledge areas where you're competent in, you're going to have success in there, that's the perfect recipe for success.

Jessica L.:
Great. I appreciate so much your words of encouragement, and the work that you do every day, not only to mentor students, but to advocate for your profession and technicians out there everywhere.

Jessica L.:
So keep doing all the wonderful things you're doing. And I'm sure we will see you somewhere again. I know you are presenting at PTEC so congratulations on that. 

Michelle HILL:
Thank you. 

Jessica L.:
And we'll be seeing you elsewhere. I have a feeling.

Michelle HILL:
Thank you. I look forward to continue to advocate for pharmacy technicians.

Jessica L.:
Great. Thanks.

Jeremy S.:
Jessica thank you for those interviews. Those provided some really great insights and I always love hearing how my peers, other pharmacy technicians got started and kind of the path that they went down to get to where they are today. So I appreciate getting those insights. So here it OnScript, another thing that we want to really have is, as a goal of the show, is to bring you the listener updated news. Any type of regulatory change or anything that's big that affects our workforce. So we're going to take a moment here and I understand you've got some news to share right now.

Jessica L.:
Right? So it's always really great when we are able to report out those positive movements in states. Because as we know, pharmacy technicians are regulated by each state individually.

Jessica L.:
Believe it or not, there are still around 9 or 10 states that don't regulate technicians whatsoever. Meaning they don't have a registration system on file, no licensure, no certification training or education requirement that exist in them. 

Jeremy S.:
Wow.

Jessica L.:
So we're continuously trying to work with those states, to educate them, to push them towards kind of, just really allowing technicians to have a voice. If they are not even recognizing them for the job that they're doing, it's really hard to advance that profession forward. 

Jessica L.:
So happy to announce a couple of states are moving in a positive direction. One being New York. So New York is actually has an active piece of legislation working right now that would require certification for technicians that work in the hospital setting. Historically, they've had similar bills get introduced for around the last seven years and they don't tend to move very far. So it was great to see this one progress through. It's a step in the right direction and I think it'll only be a catalyst for other similar regulations to go forward in the coming years.

Jeremy S.:
Now, do you suppose that perhaps a catalyst there, is the employers and the pharmacists within the state? Because even with the lack of regulation, I know that we've worked with entities, pharmacies in New York that have taken it upon themselves to push for certification. 

Jeremy S.:
They themselves realizing the value that having a well-trained technician workforce that can also demonstrate a level of competency, what that brings to their practice. I mean, I have to believe that had some sort of influence. 

Jessica L.:
Yeah. When no state authority or regulation exists, it really does become the priority of the employers who are hiring these individuals to take patient care and medication safety into their own hands. So then they have to look at the overall picture and ensure that those practices are happening in their organizations and in their pharmacies.

Jessica L.:
So yes, we do see predominantly a lot of employers, regardless of the state statues that will require certification or a specific type of education and training for technicians that are hired within their organization. 

Jeremy S.:
Great. And that's great news about New York. 

Jessica L.:
Second, we have Colorado. Colorado has been really awesome to collaborate with over the last year. They have gone from zero to a hundred really fast. The stakeholders within their state really work together well. And in June of this year, the governor signed into law, a new pharmacy technician requirements. Saying that, "Practicing technicians in the state of Colorado after March 30th of next year, 2020, will be required to obtain certification from the state board of pharmacy." Now that there's some cavier behind that, and as always, you can go to the Colorado Board of Pharmacy Website or you can visit NHA website where we typically put out information regarding state laws and regulations for technicians.

Jeremy S.:
And that's NHAnow.com, just to throw that in there.

Jessica L.:
NHAnow.com. If you go up under the tab about NHA and news center, you can find those stories there. Some of the details are there. So for an individual in Colorado to become certified, they would have to be certified by a board approved, nationally recognized certification organization. And with that they can either be approved by the National Association of Boards of pharmacy or NABP or NCCA, which is the National Commission of Certifying Agencies, both of which have approved the ExCPT. So that's really great news for NHA and NHA certification holders. 

Jeremy S.:
Absolutely. That is good news. And correct me if I'm wrong, prior to a requirement for certification, Colorado kind of had some regulation in place where the ratio of pharmacy technician to pharmacist, would differ depending on whether or not the pharmacy technicians working under that supervision of the pharmacist was certified. Is that correct? 

Jessica L.:
Correct. They did have some language around technician to pharmacist ratio. And you could find all of that information on the board on how that remained or got tweaked a little bit with this new language when it goes into effect.

Jeremy S.:
Fantastic, great information. Welcome any comments or questions that you may have as a listener, listening to OnScript. Please email us@OnScriptatNHAnow.com. Especially if you have a news story that is hitting your state. That's of great importance to the pharmacy technician workforce or to yourself working as a pharmacy technician. Anything that happens, questions, comments, concerns, you name it, stories, unique stories, we'd love to hear all of it. And we'll do the best that we can as those come into address any questions on future podcasts. 

Jessica L.:
We also like obviously, on top of just news and regulation, we want to ask your feedback and get post some listener questions for our individual podcast segments that we record. 

Jessica L.:
So based on these discussions that you heard earlier from the organization, PTEC, what's on the horizon for pharmtech education? If you're a pharmtech educator, or a pharmtech student. Give us a shout out and let us know what's happening in your school, what's happening, what challenges are you facing as an educator? And we'll post it out there and it may even be a topic of an upcoming episode. 

Jeremy S.:
That'd be great. We really want to use this medium as a way to give a voice to more technicians out there and make people aware more so I think of what a pharmacy technician does, how they're educated, what they're expected to know.

Jeremy S.:
It was interesting for me personally, I started as a pharmacy technician, in high school and I vividly remember one of my fellow students, same grade level as myself, asking if I was a pharmacist and it made me chuckle, but at the same time it made me realize that that's a majority of the lay persons out there. The people that go to a pharmacy, they don't necessarily know that pharmacists have doctoral level degrees, and they don't know pharmacy technicians in terms of what educational background they have or what they need to know to become nationally certified. So this is a great way to kind of spread that message out somewhere as well.

Jeremy S.:
Well, Jessica, I just want to wrap up this show thanking you so much for being here and really just the work that you do to support pharmacy technicians. I had the privilege of working with you in a limited capacity before my time here at NHA and I appreciate it all of your work and efforts back then as well. 

Jeremy S.:
More so now, now that I see what you have to do and my goodness, you're everywhere. It seems you're globetrotting, going to board meetings, conferences and just continuing to advocate for the workforce. So we certainly appreciate it.

Jessica L.:
Well, the goal of OnScript, is really to be that medium for pharmacy technicians and to be a platform for them to have a voice. So anything that I can do to contribute and to help I'm onboard and all in. 

Jeremy S.:
Yeah. But we want to hear from the listeners as well. So please email us at OnScript@NHAnow.com. And until next time for all of you pill warriors and Spatula crusaders out there, hope you enjoy these episodes, hope you become a listener. 

Jeremy S.:
Please subscribe. We're going to be available on multiple podcast platforms. Please subscribe and please continue to engage with us. Send us email, we want to hear from you. So thank you so much. And we will be back with you soon. 

Speaker 2:
Thanks for listening to OnScript, where we cast a spotlight on pharmacy technicians, the services they provide, and to the patients they serve. So for all the spatular warriors, TPN Ninjas, and leashes of litigation, this podcast is for you. 

Speaker 2:
Subscribe at Apple podcasts, Spotify, or go to pharmacypodcast.com