Hospital Pharmacy Technician Workforce over 12 Years (2006-2017) in Saudi Arabia

ABSTRACT

Objective: To explore the workforce of pharmacy technician at Ministry of Health (MOH) hospitals over the past 12 years (2006–2017) in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Methods: This is a retrospective analysis of 12 years (2006–2017) of MOH pharmacy technician workforce at hospital practice. All data were derived from MOH’s Statistical Year Books and any missing appropriate information of pharmacy technician workforce was estimated through allied healthcare professional’s data at each region including gender or nationality. It included pharmacy technician and excluded all types of pharmacists or clinical pharmacist’s workforces at MOH hospital setting. All calculations were based on MOH workforce standards of hospitals. All calculations were performed using Microsoft Excel version 10. Results: A total of 8373 pharmacy technicians were employed with 6620 (79.06 %) and 1623 (19.38%) pharmacy technicians employed at various hospitals and primary healthcare centers, respectively; while in the medical administration sectors was 130 (1.55 %). The total number of pharmacy technicians were 4578 (range 2899–6620). The average number of pharmacy technicians working per bed per region of the hospital was 0.25 (range 0.08–1.66). The average number of pharmacy technicians per pharmacist per region was 3.04 (range 2.00–5.57) annually. The average number of male pharmacy technicians was 195 (85.15%) (range 114–285), whereas the number of female technicians was 34 (14.84%) (range 21–46). An estimated average number of 211 (92.14%) were Saudi nationals per region (range 104–319), whereas an average of 18 (7.86%) were non-Saudi individuals (range 10–41). Conclusion: There are more number of pharmacy technicians working at MOH hospitals. The majority of them were Saudi nationals and there were more males than that of female technicians. The ratio of pharmacist to technician was acceptable. The annual assessment of pharmacy technician workforce in the MOH healthcare institutions is required in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.