Last fall’s deadly meningitis outbreak linked to contaminated steroid injections is a tragic reminder of the risk of errors inherent in manual pharmacy medication compounding. Unsanitary conditions at the Massachusetts compounding pharmacy that made the injections resulted in fungal contamination of the drugs. The resulting outbreak sickened nearly 700 people in 19 states, and killed more than 40.
Michigan was particularly hard-hit and had the most cases in the nation. One of only two states with more than 100 cases of illness linked to the contaminated injections (the other is Tennessee with 150 cases), Michigan has seen 250 cases to date, and 13 deaths.
Although this outbreak is an egregious example of medication compounding gone awry, it is hardly an isolated incident. In December, the journal American Health & Drug Benefits reported that medication errors from injectable drugs harm more than 1 million patients annually in U.S. hospitals. Adverse drug events (ADEs) due to injectable medications cost U.S. healthcare payers between $2.7 billion to $5.1 billion annually, an average of $600,000 per hospital.
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