Uh, should a pharmacy tech really be allow to mix meds?

[Laboratorian]

Error that killed a baby.

https://allnurses.com/nursing-news/babys-death-spotlights-584283.html

And what happen in my city a few months back: pharmacy tech decided to skip autoclaving all together and contaminated TPN with serratia marcescens, killing 19.

I've never taken a pharmacy tech course. I do know that some pharmacy's will hire people with no formal education and provide on the job training. I also know that you are not required to obtain a pharmacy tech degree/diploma/certificate to take the certification exam; as long as you have a highschool diploma and pay the fee you can take the test.

Until the serratia outbreak I though the only thing pharm. techs did was deliver meds.

[RTtoBe2011]

uh, why shouldn't they be? it's a physical task they've been trained and are paid to do. Or are we saying that because a few techs--or even all techs occasionally--make mistakes, no techs should be allowed mix meds? If that's the case we'd better just give up on healthcare all together because we all make errors and we can all negatively affect a patient.

i personally make IV admixtures, neonate TPNs and chemos as a technician. more education is never bad but I think a better solution to these types of errors by techs is continuous process improvement. especially in this case. it was obviously a human error compounded by multiple process failures that turned what was essentially a typo into a tragic, unnecessary death.