Education, Thirst for Knowledge Emerges from Health Mart University

Nancy Lyons, VP, Chief Pharmacy Officer, Healthmart, McKesson, spoke to Pharmacy Times about pharmacy technicians and Health Mart University.

Lyons: Health Mart University is a tool. So we definitely have the pharmacies going in and using those CPE credits to maintain licenses, but we actually leverage it as well in our administration of the health market, federal COVID-19 vaccine program. And some of the required training was a bit making them contract compliant were also able to be offered in that program. And so the response whether they had to or they wanted to, we've definitely seen education and that thirst for the new knowledge that all of the things that COVID-19 brought be met by our platform. And pharmacy technicians in general. Health Mart took on a role a few years ago, pre pandemic, to offer. We saw ASHP, ACPE accreditation for pharmacy technician program. So Health Mart helps that accreditation and then allows eligible community pharmacies to become preceptors within the program. And do that, that accredited training on their job sites, allowing them to customize it so that it meets the needs of their pharmacy, and knowing that not everybody needed that upper level ASHP training. We also offer at what we call our basic technician training program, to allow pharmacies to bring those new technicians on board, help them meet the PTCB examination standards, and really get that new technician ready to go.