The time spent by satellite pharmacists and technicians on various activities was measured by using work sampling to evaluate the pharmacists' use of time for patient care. Between December 1992 and April 1993, pharmacists and technicians on satellite pharmacy teams at a tertiary care teaching hospital reported their work activities on forms. A total of 11,485 observations of pharmacist work activities and 7,626 observations of technician work activities were made. Pharmacists on teams with fewer support staff members spent less time on patient care-related work activities, and vice versa. As measured by an institution-specific index, the efficiency with which pharmacists used the available work time for patient care ranged from 60% to 83% for the various teams (100% would mean that pharmacists spent all their work time on patient care tasks). Changes were made in technician staffing that enabled the pharmacists to devote more time to patient care. Measuring the time pharmacists and technicians spent on various work activities provided a means of identifying and correcting organizational inefficiencies in order to give the pharmacists more time for patient care.