Directly Speaking - Give Your Technicians A Holiday Gift That Keeps on Giving!

In National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, Clark Griswold (Chevy Chase) receives a membership to the Jelly of the Month Club as his Christmas Bonus and Cousin Eddie (Randy Quaid) overwhelmed and almost choking on his eggnog, expounds, “Clark, that’s the gift that keeps on giving throughout the entire year!” Every time I see a gift that has lasting value, I think of that scene and how it was not the case for Clark.

But if you’re a pharmacy director, a pharmacist that works with an outstanding certified technician, or a certified pharmacy technician that works with other outstanding certified technicians, you can give one or many of those techs a holiday present of ICHP membership that will keep on giving throughout the entire year. ICHP technician membership now includes free online access to ICHP’s home-study product Pharmacy Tech Topics™! That one benefit is a $45 value for the membership fee of $35!

And ICHP membership offers so much more. But first let’s focus on the value of Pharmacy Tech Topics™. PTT as I will refer to it from now on, offers 10 hours of continuing pharmacy education (CPE) annually, specifically designed for certified pharmacy technicians in four quarterly modules. Each module has one specific topic of focus, and the first module of each year, available on January 1 will provide either 2.5 hours of law or medication safety CPE. With a two year subscription or membership in ICHP, certified pharmacy technicians will be able to obtain all the CPE credits they need to recertify with PTCB. All modules provide ACPE credit and will be reported directly to CPE Monitor. That’s an important fact for the future as PTCB moves to use CPE Monitor to facilitate the recertification process. It’s coming soon.

The module topics are timely and useful.  Module titles from 2012-2014 include:

You can see these modules cover a wide range of topics and all with the pharmacy technician in mind. The modules are published in January, April, July and October and are good for CPE credit for two years. So there’s plenty of time to take advantage of each module when you’re ready and when you need the credit.

The modules require the completion of a post-test with a passing score of 70% or better. The questions are multiple choice and are scored immediately. Once the technician passes the test, the statement of credit is available for printing or storage, and it is forwarded to CPE Monitor. No more file folders that can get lost, no more statements of credit that can disappear equally as easy.

Now wait, there’s more to this exciting offer! (You’ll hear that a lot this season!) ICHP membership also includes 10 issues of ICHP’s News Journal KeePosted. Published online, this news journal provides updates on legislation, regulation and educational offerings. It highlights what’s happening at the various colleges of pharmacy along with patient safety articles and more. In addition to the KP as we like to call it, your technician member will receive discounts on registration fees to both statewide educational meetings. CE offered during the Champion Webinars, offered bi-monthly (we’ll talk about the Champion’s Program in a later issue if you are not familiar with it) is also free with 0.5 contact hours of ACPE credit offered.

As you can see, there’s more than just PTT and additional options for obtaining the much desired CPE credit. And unfortunately, the days of the pharmaceutical industry sponsored supper-clubs that many of us grew up with and loved are long gone. With them the once abundant CPE programs for both pharmacy techs and pharmacists have gone, too. So ICHP has put together this new and improved technician membership package to make up for that. We know how hard it is to find good pharmacy technician CPE and how expensive it can be too.

So this holiday season, consider giving “a gift that keeps on giving throughout the entire year” to one or more of your Certified Pharmacy Technicians. And if you’re a Certified Pharmacy Technician and dropping hints doesn’t seem to be working, you can always treat yourself to this great value as your own holiday gift! Happy Holidays! And only 24 more shopping days till Christmas!