(Management Case Study) Use of a Longitudinal Internship Program to Address Pharmacy Labor Shortages

Purpose: Pharmacist interns are qualified to perform more advanced job functions than pharmacy technicians. The coronavirus pandemic contributed to a labor shortage amongst pharmacists and pharmacy technicians, creating more opportunities for pharmacy interns to offset departmental workloads and act as a pharmacist extender for clinical needs. Operational and clinical activities performed by pharmacy interns were evaluated to highlight their overall value to the department.

Methods: The internship program within a hospital enrolls pharmacist interns at the start of their second year of pharmacy school and continues throughout their fourth year. Interns are hired in a PRN capacity based on their availability and the operational needs, working a minimum average of 8 hours per week. Those operational needs are primarily during weekends when pharmacy services are consolidated and staffing coverage needs are high. Interns start with operational tasks during their second year and assume clinical responsibilities in their third year as they progress through their PharmD curriculum. Clinical responsibilities and shifts include medication histories which are focused in the emergency department. Additionally, pharmacists can delegate medication histories for admitted patients to interns. In year four, interns provide anticoagulation education to patients that would be provided by a pharmacist otherwise. Interns may have their clinical shift assignment reallocated towards central operations to help meet needs due to staffing shortages. A retrospective review was conducted to capture more of the advanced clinical activities performed by interns. Documented interventions were extracted from the electronic health record over a period of 14 months and assessed.

Results: From March 2021 to April 2022, a total of 1900 medication histories were performed by pharmacist interns. Furthermore, 389 anticoagulation education sessions were completed by interns. At an average of 20 minutes per anticoagulation education session and documentation, this equated to approximately 130 hours of pharmacist time saved throughout the period.

Conclusion: Implementation and utilization of a pharmacy internship program can help address pharmacy technician shortages and alleviate pharmacist workloads.