Sunday, October 28, 2012

United States pharmacies facing growing drug shortage Drug shortages in American hospitals


  • October 28, 2012
  • By: Mary Bender

  • The latest reports about the United States healthcare
    industry, show that it is the middle of one of the worst
    drug shortages in American history. One of the biggest
    causes of this are "compounding pharmacies". Also,
    according to an article in the online publication,
    FierceHealthcare, called, "Meningitis scare could
    worsen drug shortage", by Alicia Caramenico,
    the menigitis outbreak, is believed by some to have been
    caused by contaminated steroids from compounding
    pharmacies.
    In a related October 15, 2012 article, by Alicia Caramenico,
    called, "Hospital use of componding pharmacies under
    fire", explains that compounding pharmacies were
    begun to be used when it became evident there was
    a growing shortage of drugs used for prescriptions
    and in hospitals. "... despite policies and procedures
    to insure the sterility of drugs, compounding pharmacies
    have been linked to patient safety incidents, in the past
    few years..."
    Another reason for the higher amount of compound
    pharmacies, is due to the increase in outpatient
    surgeries, and ambulatory care areas. The
    healthcare industry is also facing a shortage of anesthesiology
    drugs for surgeries. Anesthesiologists have been turning to
    compound pharmacies to relieve this shortage.
    So, while the shortage of medications for hospitals and
    pharmacies caused the growth and usage of
    compound pharmacies, they are creating not only
    safety problems, but worse than ever shortages.
    Source found here
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