Pharmacy

The drum beat for managing the COVID-19 pandemic from public health leaders continues to be test, test, test. Before investing in new technology, there are several considerations that chief financial officers should consider.

More

The COVID pandemic has produced many new challenges for hospital-based laboratories. One area that laboratory leaders may find immediate cost reduction opportunities is through a review of utilization and pricing for reference laboratory services. 

More

As a nurse with decades of experience, I have been perplexed by the ongoing reporting challenges related to testing for COVID-19. There are a multitude of vendors providing the various tests that determine if a patient is infected with the active virus and those that detect antibodies that indicate prior infection. There is a broad variation in turnaround time for results — from a few hours to a few days to even weeks for some. It is an unprecedented health care issue with an unprecedented response.

More

At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, medical laboratories immediately experienced a decline in testing volume. And, while the test volumes are inching upward as labs find their footing in the new pandemic environment, the rate of recovery is slower than anticipated.

More

With over 50 million U.S. adults experiencing chronic pain daily, the need for patient care hasn’t disappeared, but it may have grown more complicated due to the pandemic.   

More

[Full disclosure: your author is a Canadian import] After several months of D.C. chatter and countless state importation bills, FDA recently took two significant regulatory steps to allow for prescription drug importation from Canada. Wait, you thought importation was already happening in Florida? Not quite. More

We’ve recently shared communications about updates to existing United States Pharmacopeia Convention (USP) Chapters surrounding pharmaceutical compounding regulations as well as a new regulation for handling hazardous drugs in health care facilities. The new and updated rules were scheduled to go into effect Dec. 1. More

In recent years, there has been a significant amount of regulatory focus on compounding pharmacies. Specifically, regulatory agencies want to establish guidance for quality and sterility of products with the goal of providing the highest standard of finished product for patient administration. While new guidelines were created in various USP chapters, there has not been guidance for every aspect of compounding pharmacy practices. One notable exclusion was radiopharmaceutical compounding and... More

There are areas in health care facilities that require specific environmental controls and operational procedures to ensure safety, such as patient isolation rooms, surgical suites and compounding areas. Environmental or procedural breaches in these “high consequence” spaces may lead to adverse events, causing harm, or even death, for pharmacists, caregivers and patients. More

Plasma-derived therapeutics are part of a complex dynamic of global supply chain economics and clinical contributing factors, all of which can affect the ability to obtain the product needed for patient care. Immunoglobulin (Ig), the main driver in current plasma manufacturing, has experienced double-digit growth within North American markets, leading to an increased demand the manufacturing community has been challenged to meet.* More