Health care delivery is changing rapidly and that brings new opportunities for error, according to a speaker at the 34th midyear clinical meeting of the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists (ASHP), held in Orlando, Florida, from December 5 to 9, 1999. Almost 16,500 people gathered at the Orange County convention centre for the meeting, including participants from 35 countries. This three-page report, contributed by Laurence Goldberg (consultant pharmacist) and Christine Clark (medical writer) looks at some of the topics covered
Automated equipment, drug delivery devices and high-technology systems heavily dominated the medical exhibition, which, until recently, had been mainly concerned with pharmaceutical products. Large crowds of participants gathered around the booths promoting automated dispensing systems and it was apparent that most large hospitals will have invested in this type of technology within the next two to three years. Systems were available for all types of drug distribution and dispensing from fully automated, unit-dose dispensing to patient-labelled original pack supply. These services could operate in-house or remotely through "telepharmacy" programmes.
At an industry-sponsored satellite meeting on cytotoxic drugs, entitled, "Safe handling: the rules have changed", Dr Thomas Connor (school of public health, University of Texas) described the contamination problems of compounding cytotoxic drugs using class II biological safety cabinets. The discussion that followed showed that American hospital pharmacists were now, at last, moving towards the use of isolators.
Two types of isolator were on show, and, although their presence marked a major step forward in thinking, neither found favour with the British delegation.
Many of the sophisticated features of isolators found in UK hospitals were missing from those on display, although the manufacturers did indicate that they were prepared to modify their equipment to meet customer needs.
Fully-automated dispensing machine |
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