The Government of Ontario has recognized the urgent need for additional personnel in the healthcare sector due to the COVID-19 pandemic, by way of qualified & trained Personal Support Workers. Ontario has set up the PSW Challenge Fund which will provide $86 million to train up to 8,000 personal support workers (PSWs) at accredited schools across the province. Learn how you can become a PSW for free at KLC College!

 

1. Why Become a Personal Support Worker?

Not only are they in-demand during the pandemic, but PSWs are trained in a field that is always in need of new hires. The types of employers includes hospitals, care homes, and more – ensuring that this field of study is a lucrative one.

2. What Does the Government Pay For?

The Ontario government is covering the entirety of your tuition as a bursary, not a loan, meaning you do not have to pay back your fees. Covered in this cost includes:

• Up to $7,500 for tuition, books and other relevant mandatory fees
• Up to $5,735 to cover costs for your clinical work placement

3. What Do I Do Next?

This funding is only available for students applying to a PSW program that starts between May 1 and July 31, 2022 – so we encourage you take any of the following steps:

• Contact our PSW program rep Brandon at bmarlin@klccollege.ca to learn more and have any questions answered – click here
• Apply to join KLC’s June 2022 or September 2022 PSW class at our Kingston, Toronto or Whitby campus – click here
• Fill out the form below to have our KLC Admissions team schedule a callback within 24 hours.

Take advantage of this unique opportunity to have 100% of your education paid for by the government with no repayment required! 

The average salary of a pharmacy technician in Canada is $25 per hour or around $49,000 per year. The base salary is $37,000 a year. The pharmacy technician salaries can slightly vary by region.

A Highly Demanded Position

Pharmacy technician is one of the highest demanded positions in Canada. Since the Canadian population is slowly aging, the demand for healthcare professionals is steadily growing. Pharmacy technicians are getting competitive salaries.

Today, the number of licensed pharmacists, including pharmacy technicians and pharmacy assistants in Canada is a little over 42,000. They are working in over 10,000 pharmacies across the country. About 70% of these specialists work in community pharmacies. Others work in hospitals and other healthcare industries and government settings. 

Pharmacy technicians (PhTs) earn more money than pharmacy assistants do because they have more responsibilities. The demand for technicians is usually higher than for assistants. Meanwhile, the time it takes to complete programs for each position is almost the same.

 

Pharmacy Technician vs Assistant

When people first start searching for career opportunities, these two positions may appear alike. In reality, they are drastically different but some similarities exist.

Pharmacy Technician

Pharmacy technician education requirements are more complex than the assistant’s.  PhTs need to go through an accredited diploma program that comes with specific admission requirements. The program for PhT accreditation is longer than an assistant’s program.

At the end of the program, the pharmacy technician passes a pharmacy technician certification exam, receives a license, and becomes an official RPhT (Registered Pharmacy Technician). Before that happens, the students have to complete specific requirements. The requirements depend on the college they choose.

Depending on the program, it can take up to two years to become a licensed pharmacy technician. Some students complete the program within several months.

Keep in mind that after completing the program and before getting a job, the pharmacy technician has to purchase appropriate liability insurance.

Pharmacy Assistant

In most parts of Canada, pharmacy assistant isn’t an accredited profession. While you still need to complete a training program, you won’t have to pass specific forms of examination or buy liability insurance.

Pharmacy assistants complete a pharmacy assistant program and receive a diploma. Once you have a diploma, you can get a job.

Pharmacy Technician vs Pharmacists

If you are a Pharmacy Technician who wants to become a pharmacist, you need to obtain an extra set of skills. Pharmacists are more clinically-focused than technicians and assistants are.

To become a pharmacist, you would need to complete five-year education and receive an MPharm degree. During the education process, you will gain knowledge in different sciences, including biology and chemistry.

Pharmacists take care of such duties as:

• Filling prescriptions
• Administering vaccines
• Consulting patients on how to take medication
• Making sure patients’ medications don’t interfere with each other.

Additionally, pharmacists oversee the work of technicians and assistants.

What Does a Pharmacy Technician Do?

Pharmacy technicians help pharmacists with their primary tasks. Their responsibilities include:

• Collecting and recording data that is required to provide pharmacy services.
• Creating patient records
• Interacting with prescribers
• Recording prescription changes after receiving authorization from the prescriber
• Transferring prescriptions to another pharmacy when needed
• Checking new prescriptions and refilling prescriptions
• Answering questions that patients might have about certain drugs, healthcare products, and devices that don’t need a pharmacist’s knowledge or assessment
• Consulting patients about using healthcare products or devices
• Performing sterile compounding
• Instructing pharmacy assistants and students

Pharmacy technicians’ duties can vary depending on the setting they work in. So does their salary.

How to Become a Pharmacy Technician?

To become a pharmacy technician in Canada, you can enroll in a pharmacy technician training program at a college. Various colleges offer high-quality programs that can help you get your PhT diploma within two years.

Depending on the college you choose, you are likely to:

• Work with pharmacy teams and healthcare professionals to learn how to achieve patients’ health goals.
• Participate in experimental learning practices that may include placements in community pharmacies, hospitals or other settings. Many healthcare providers readily engage students in the learning process.
• Learn from practicing pharmacy experts.
• Develop abilities, skills, and knowledge in the main areas of ethical responsibilities, patient care, communication, and product preparation.

At the end of the course, PTs receive their PhT diplomas.  If the college works by the standards of the Canadian Council for Accreditation of Pharmacy Programs (CCAPP), students learn to meet Professional Competencies for Canadian Pharmacy Technicians at the entry to practice.

Keep in mind that standards of practice for Canadian pharmacy technicians can vary by province or territory. Consider checking education and practice requirements for the province you plan to work in.

What Skills Should a Pharmacy Technician Have?

Common pharmacy technician skills include:

• Excellent communication – PhTs need to work with patients. That’s why they must have excellent patient-pharmacist communication skills. Since patients who are filling prescriptions are often in distress, a PhT must know exactly how to interact with them.
• Advanced calculations – PhTs have to work with different measurements and dosages. Accordingly, they need to have advanced calculations skills. While you can always use a computer, without these skills, your work could go much slower than needed.
• Top-Notch Organization – pharmacies and other healthcare settings are often highly fast-paced. Pharmacy technicians need to juggle a variety of tasks while consulting patients and helping pharmacists. Organizational skills are a must-have for PhTs who are want to get high salaries.
• Ethics – working with patients and their records requires excellent ethics skills. While you are studying to be a PhT, you will learn the legislation that regulates ethics for healthcare and pharmacy employees.
• Computer – to work in a pharmacy, you need to learn specific programs and apps. Good computer skills are required to help you work with various software.

A good PhT should also have satisfactory problem-solving skills and be good at critical thinking.

The Takeaway

A pharmacy technician is a highly demanded profession in Canada. These specialists can earn over $50,000 per year. To become a skilled PhT, you need to take a training course and receive a license and diploma.

Experienced PhTs get higher salaries and have an opportunity to become pharmacists, who are also in high demand all across the country.

*UPDATE: eligibility for the Challenge Fund ended July 31, 2021. However, you can still apply for the PSW program using various other funding methods!*

The Government of Ontario has recognized the urgent need for additional personnel in the healthcare sector due to the COVID-19 pandemic, by way of qualified & trained Personal Support Workers. Ontario has set up the PSW Challenge Fund which will provide $86 million to train up to 8,000 personal support workers (PSWs) at accredited schools across the province. Learn how you can become a PSW for free at KLC College!

 

1. Why Become a Personal Support Worker?

Not only are they in-demand during the pandemic, but PSWs are trained in a field that is always in need of new hires. The types of employers includes hospitals, care homes, and more – ensuring that this field of study is a lucrative one.

2. What Does the Government Pay For?

The Ontario government is covering the entirety of your tuition as a bursary, not a loan, meaning you do not have to pay back your fees. Covered in this cost includes:

• Up to $7,500 for tuition, books and other relevant mandatory fees
• Up to $5,735 to cover costs for your clinical work placement

3. What Do I Do Next?

This funding is only available for students applying to a PSW program that starts between May 1 and July 31, 2021 – so we encourage you take any of the following steps:

• Contact our PSW program rep Tracy at trobidoux@klccollege.ca to learn more and have any questions answered – click here
• Apply to join KLC’s July 2021 PSW class at our Kingston, Toronto or Whitby campus – click here
• Fill out the form below to have our KLC Admissions team schedule a callback within 24 hours.

Take advantage of this unique opportunity to have 100% of your education paid for by the government with no repayment required! 

The rise of remote working during COVID-19 has meant an increased need for trained and qualified individuals who have the skills to manage online or virtual office workloads. Office administrators have always been important to the running of businesses, but there are many more ways to apply that skillset. Here are 4 remote job paths for office administrators.

 

1. Community Manager

The surge in virtual communication between businesses and their customers means an increase in the need for Community Managers. These individuals are responsible for developing and maintaining a strong community based around the businesses and brands they work for. They’re the ones who help to manage outward communications like conversations with online communities by listening to and corresponding with the fanbase, followers and subscribers of an organization. They are an integral part of the ability to personalize and build strong relationships with consumers, so having the ability to project manage as well as coordinate internal team members is an essential element of this role.

 

2. Personal Virtual Assistant

With people’s schedules becoming more hectic due to the changes in society and the workplace, qualified and trained virtual assistants are in demand. A personal virtual assistant is an individual who is skilled and training in organization and task management, allowing them to provide daily administrative & scheduling tasks for entrepreneurs, executives, and families. A virtual assistant is able to work remotely through multiple communication channels such as email, video chat, instant messaging, and phone. Being trained in the management of office settings provides you with the tools to excel as a personal virtual assistant.

 

3. Data Entry Clerk

Jobs in the data entry field have been evolving to become practical for remote work. Being hired as a data entry clerk means using your training to enter data from various sources into your company’s computer systems for it then be processed and managed. These roles play an important part of the transfer and recording of crucial, sensitive, and often confidential information, so someone with an education background that encourages attention to detail and management of multiple projects will likely have an advantage when working in this type of job.

 

4. Transcriptionist

If you have a good ear, an eye for detail, and fast fingers, then a transcriptionist job may be for you. They are hired to create accurate word-for-word written versions of recordings (both audio and video), and review or edit automatic transcriptions completed by speech recognition software. The hiring in this field is done by companies with high volume of recordings to be transcribed, as well as transcription companies who sell these services independently. Either way, with the increase in Zoom calls and virtual meetings, the need for trained transcribers is only increasing.

Pharmacies have always played an integral role in local communities. With coronavirus affecting every region, the role of pharmacies has grown and expanded to supporting the community on an even wider scale. Here are 3 ways that pharmacies help the community during COVID-19.

 

1. Sharing accurate medical advice

Individuals with and without existing conditions are looking for answers to their pressing medical questions in regards to how COVID-19 may affect their health. Pharmacists and pharmacy technicians in your local community are usually the first point-of-care for patients, and thank to their wide expertise they are able to share medical advice that is relevant to each individual. Many people have many questions about potential drugs or vaccines which they can receive accurate and up-to-date information on at their local pharmacy. Members of the community with pre-existing conditions may require additional drug supply management when facing situation like lockdowns and quarantines, and pharmacy staff are able to provide guidance on how patients can find better quality of life and piece of mind through this guidance.

 

2. Administering testing

Many regions across Canada are seeing pharmacies expanding to include COVID-19 testing, which is a crucial element to help stop the spread and flatten the curve. Pharmacy staff including pharmacy technicians are now becoming a resource on the frontline of fighting COVID-19 through their hard work to ease the burden on hospitals and other medical facilities by administering safe, socially distanced testing.

 

3. Advocating for the Community

Many pharmacy staff end up becoming the most frequent healthcare professional in a patient’s network due to their connectivity to their local community.  Due to this close relationship, pharmacies can end up hearing about the needs and wants of patients in their region. Many advancements such as medication delivery, drive-through pharmacies, and telemedicine are being advocated by the very pharmacists and pharmacy technicians who support their local patients and community at large.