Almost everyone has been to the pharmacy to fill a prescription at some point in their life. In fact, many people routinely visit the pharmacy each month to get their regular prescriptions filled for maintenance medications. Some of these frequent pharmacy customers have many different prescriptions of which the pharmacist must…
Over the last decade or so, the number of specialty pharmacies in the industry has greatly increased. According to one industry news report, this is due in part to the fact that drug manufacturers prefer to rely on a specialized pharmacy to assist patients with the administration and use of…
When a person goes to their pharmacy to get a prescription filled, they hope that it is accurate. However, if there is a problem with the prescription—whether it be the dosage, the instructions, or the drug itself—the patient has an opportunity to review the prescription before ingesting the medication. However, this…
In areas of the country where there is a large minority of non-English speakers, some pharmacies have been pressured to translate the prescription instructions into the predominant language in the area. For example, one article explains that some California pharmacies are being pressured to translate their instructions into Chinese and…
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved a “hand-held auto-injector” device for use with known or suspected opioid overdoses. Abuse of opioids, a group of drugs that includes many prescription painkillers, is becoming a serious problem in the U.S., and the FDA claims that opioid overdose has surpassed automobile…
A national pharmacy chain has partnered with a medical school and a pharmacy school to open a store that will explore a new model for patient care. The “Walgreens at UCSF” store, located on the University of California, San Francisco campus, is reportedly designed to enable extensive communication between pharmacists…
A new study, conducted in Irish hospitals and published in a British journal, reviewed the effectiveness of a “collaborative” model of managing hospital patients’ medications. The model, known as the Collaborative Pharmaceutical Care in Tallaght Hospital (PACT), involves close involvement of clinical pharmacists in all stages of patient care during…
A hospital in Houston, Texas has adopted a “narrative-based approach” of communicating the details of medication errors to hospital staff (login required). A medication safety consultant employed by the hospital found that the prior approach, which relied on unit managers to pass along information to their teams, was not leading…
Following the widespread contamination problems at several compounding facilities, hospitals and pharmacies have begun to reevaluate the potential options for improving sterility and quality of compounded IV fluids and related products. One potential option is the use of robots in lieu of pharmacists or technicians. One such robot is called…