Jerry Fahrni

Tag: Reference

  • Where to get information on compounding sterile preparations

    Someone asked me the other day where they could read up on what’s going on in the world of pharmacy sterile compounding. It’s a good question. The simple answer is to get your hands on a copy of the USP Compounding Compendium and read it over and over again. That’s where I started. Unfortunately, that will make you about $150 lighter in the wallet. Not to mention that it’s not the most entertaining of documents.

    ASHP offers several training courses that include written material as well as video. I’ve gone through many of them myself. They’re good, but expensive. You can see a list of them here.

    ASHP also offers a Sterile Compounding Resource Center. Lots of good content there, especially in the Policies, Best Practices, and Guidelines section. Some of the material may require you to be an active ASHP member, but I believe some (much?) of the content is free.

    I’ve found Pharmacy Practice News and Pharmacy Purchasing & Products to have lots of good, timely content pertaining to sterile compounding. The best part about these two publications is that they provide free access after a one-time registration process.

    If you’re just looking for general reading material, a Google search for sterile compounding, compounded sterile preparations (CSPs), primary engineering controls, beyond-use dating (BUD), USP <797>, or pharmacy compounding will give you more than you can handle.

    Anyone else have any recommendations for where to find information on sterile compounding? If you do, feel free to leave a comment below.

  • New Medscape Pill Identifier Tool [reference]

    Medscape Pill IdentifierI received an email this morning from Medscape introducing me to their new Pill Identifier Tool.

    The tool is pretty simple to use. When you click on the link above you’ll be taken to the Pill Identifier Tool site where you can begin your search. Any pharmacist, nurse, or physician that’s ever used a reference to identify an oral medication will be familiar with the process.

    Across the top of the Pill Identifier you will find several fields to help narrow your search: IMPRINT, SHAPE, COLOR, FORM, SCORING. I’ve always found that if you have the imprint you’re about 80% there.

    Clicking on a medication will give you additional information. There’s even an option to view the Drug Monograph.
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  • Remington: The Science and Practice of Pharmacy, new edition coming in September

    Remington’s is an interesting pharmacy reference. It’s on my list of must-have reference books because it has always had a bit of information that you can’t find elsewhere. This is especially true in older editions which contained great information on extemporaneous compounding and manufacturing. I used to collect old Remington’s. Hey, everyone needs a hobby.

    You can check out a sample chapter here.

     

  • Results from ISMP’s survey on IV storage and beyond use dating show confusion, lack of standards

    Beyond use dating (BUD) is a bit of a hassle in acute care practice. The reason is that regulatory bodies have muddied the water with information that isn’t always the most recent or evidence based. ISMP recently published information from a survey of 715 pharmacy professionals on drug storage, stability, and beyond use dating of injectable drugs, and the results are a bit disappointing. There’s clearly a lot of confusion out there, in addition to a plethora of different practice models.

    For me the reference of choice for stability, storage and compatibility was always the Handbook on Injectable Drugs, now in its 16th Edition. This reference was affectionately known as “Trissel’s” because the author of the book Lawrence A. Trissel is a legend in the field of injectable drugs. After Trissel’s I’d do a literature search to see if I could find something that wasn’t in there; typically I couldn’t. And finally, if I couldn’t find it in Trissels’s or the literature, I’d look at the manufacturer’s information.
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