Pharmacy Practice
USP Announces Intent to Postpone Official Date of USP Chapter <800>
In a notice posted last Friday, USP announced its intention to postpone the official date of USP Chapter <800> — Hazardous Drugs — Handling in Healthcare Settings. According to the notice: “The intent of this postponement is to align the official date of General Chapter <800> with the official date of the next revision of […]
Posted in Pharmacy Practice | Tagged IV ROOM, Pharmacy Practice, USP 800 | Permalink | 1 Response
It’s time to disrupt pharmacist order verification
Several years ago there was a debate over the long-time practice of having pharmacists review all medication orders prior to administration; referred to as nearly universal prospective order review (NUPOR).(1) At the heart of the debate was whether or not such a process was still relevant in the changing face of healthcare, i.e. do pharmacist […]
Posted in Pharmacy Practice | Tagged EHR, Patient Safety, Pharmacy Practice | Permalink | 2 Responses
Sutter Health partners with Qventus for real-time analytics
FierceHealthcare: “That’s what led them to invest in a new platform that went beyond algorithms and software to emphasize the data’s tangible impact on clinician workflow and hospital operations… Although Sutter Health has worked with the company [Qventus] on several other initiatives targeting patient throughput, the pharmacy pilot is the system’s first significant foray into […]
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Nonadherence to diabetes medications costly
This is follow-up commentary to an article I Tweeted about earlier this week. JCP: “[Express Scripts] found that patients who were adherent to oral diabetes drugs had 235 fewer emergency department visits and 50 fewer inpatient hospitalizations per 1000 patients, resulting in an average of $500 saved per patients and a total decrease of $210 […]
Posted in Pharmacy Practice | Tagged Medication Adherence, Medication Safety | Permalink | Leave a response
[Article] Evaluation of real-time data obtained from gravimetric preparation…
I am currently reading an article on the use of gravimetrics in the preparation of hazardous CSPs published in the Journal of Clinical Pharmacy and Therapeutics.* The article addresses data collected from a large-scale, retrospective analysis of medication errors identified during the preparation of antineoplastic drugs, aka chemotherapy. The paper looks at 759 060 doses […]
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Time to revisit gravimetrics in the IV room
Summary: if you’re preparing compounded sterile preparations (CSPs) in a pharmacy IV room, you should be using gravimetric analysis to determine the appropriate dose/volume. Pharmacy practice is easy. Our job is to provide the right drug, at the right dose, to the right patient in the safest, most efficient, cost-effective manner possible. Simple. Currently, the […]
Posted in Pharmacy Practice | Tagged IV ROOM, Pharmacy Practice | Permalink | 5 Responses
Compounding Today: state board of pharmacy concerns with USP <800>
Each Friday the CompoundingToday Newsletter faithfully appears in my inbox. The newsletter features commentary by Lloyd V. Allen, Jr., Ph.D., RPh, Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Pharmaceutical Compounding. Dr. Allen is a legend in the pharmacy compounding world for both sterile and non-sterile products. He was someone that I looked up to during my […]
Posted in Pharmacy Practice | Tagged IV ROOM, Patient Safety, Regulation, USP 800 | Permalink | 1 Response
Automated detection of LASA medication errors
Look-alike/sound-alike (LASA) medications – also referred to as sound-alike, look-alike drugs (SALAD) (1) — have been a thorn in the side of healthcare professionals for as long as I’ve been a pharmacist. Many solutions to the LASA problem have been proposed, including Tall Man Lettering (2), physical separation of look-alike drugs, printing of both […]
Posted in Pharmacy Practice | Tagged Medication Errors, Patient Safety | Permalink | Leave a response
EHRs are an untapped, but almost impossible to use, health resource
We’re all familiar with the promise of “big data” in healthcare. Crud, I’m a huge fan of using data. I think the amount of information inside an EHR has the potential to do a lot of wonderful things, not only for healthcare in general but specifically for a pharmacist. How many kinetic consults have been […]
Posted in Pharmacy Practice | Tagged Data, EHR, Pharmacy Practice | Permalink | 3 Responses
A cautionary tale for healthcare. A lesson for pharmacy.
A couple of days ago I read an interesting piece by John Halamka over at healthsystemCIO.com. In it, Halamka shares two stories about purchasing parts for some projects. One part required a lot of legwork and took a month to secure. The other required a quick Amazon search and less that 24 hours to obtain. […]
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