Children's Hospital Colorado did not have the resources to pay pharmacy techs more or create a training program, so it established apprenticeships to solve the workforce shortage.
Hospitals have dealt with a pharmacy tech shortage for at least a decade. In 2021, the turnover rate was 20%, and 1 in 10 pharmacy directors said they had lost 40% or more of their pharmacy technicians, according to a Jan. 2 post from the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists.
In the post-pandemic landscape, occupational burnout and costs of living have risen while pharmacy tech pay has stagnated. Jennifer Hamner, PharmD, director of pharmacy professional development at the health system, said a pharmacy technician who was leaving Children's Hospital told her he made more money working for Uber.
"It's no wonder we got here," Dr. Hamner said in the post.
The pharmacy technician apprenticeship program was modeled after residency and internship programs. Elizabeth McDermid, pharmacy technician operations supervisor for the health system, said the tallest hurdle was covering students' pay, tuition and other expenses. To address that issue, the health system tapped into millions of dollars the state had stockpiled for healthcare training programs, according to Ashley Ramp, PharmD, multisite pharmacy director for Children's Hospital Colorado.
Front Range Community College in Westminster, Colo., conducts the didactic lessons while the hospital supports the experiential portion — and the partnership required compromises. Students wanted to be trained in hazardous nonsterile compounding early in their training, but Children's Hospital Colorado has a different onboarding process, according to the post.
"We had to rethink how we were exposing these apprentices to those skills," Dr. Hamner said.
Another hurdle was buy-in from potential leaders for the apprentices. The hospital learned it had to "strategically message the long-term benefits of the program, lest employees view the apprentices as simply more work to manage," according to the ASHP.