A large portion of the most recent issue of the ISMP Medication Safety Alert is dedicated to IV workflow management systems (IVWFM) and errors caused by workarounds. There are a few head-scratchers in the list to be sure. There are even some that had me speculating their authenticity, i.e. too wacky to believe. “Data submitted… Read More »
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… Read More »
First of all, is it tall man, tall-man, or tallman? And why is it called “tall man lettering” when none of the letters are actually taller than the others? Heck if I know. Just more questions in a mountain of questions piling up around tallMAN lettering. Pharmacy Practice News: “[The study] found that there hasn’t been a substantial… Read More »
Medgadget: “A collaboration between researchers at the University of British Columbia and Paul Scherrer Institut in Switzerland has developed a microneedle device for drug monitoring. The device is in a form of a patch that’s stuck onto the skin, painlessly pushing microneedles through to sample the interstitial fluid…The proof-of-concept device reported by the team was… Read More »
Needle sticks happen. I’ve actually stuck myself a few times during my career while compounding in the IV room. Fortunately for me, it never involved anything hazardous. Still, it was a pain. No pun intended. Over the years a lot of attention has been given to methods for preventing needle sticks in healthcare, ranging from things… Read More »
I spent a short time observing iv preparation in two separate, distinctly different pharmacy environments in the weeks leading up to the new year. One was a traditional iv room in a large acute care pharmacy with multiple pharmacy technicians and pharmacists putting out hundreds of compounded sterile preparations (CSPs) per day. The second was… Read More »
This morning I woke to the news that No Syringe Is Approved as a Standalone Storage Container, FDA Says. This I’m sure is in response to the recent issue with BD syringes and drug stability. I need to think about this more, but my gut reaction is that this is huge and will have a… Read More »
Pondering the need for an IV workflow management system (IVWMS)? You’re not alone if you are. According the most recent PP&P State of Pharmacy Automation Survey, 15% of facilities have already implemented something and another 29% plan to do so in the next few years. The only surprise is the relatively low percentage of facilities… Read More »
I wrote about BD Intelliport back in January. It’s an impressive system. Others think so, too.
Last week I wrote about the tragic death of a patient caused by a drug error (CSP error results in death of a patient). One day later on December 18, 2014, ISMP also addressed the error in the Acute Care edition of their biweekly ISMP Medication Safety Alert, i.e. one of their newsletter. I had hoped… Read More »