Section I
The United States is encountering a speedily accumulative incidence of drug shortages. This has caused abundant complications for health care facilities, clinicians, their patients, and federal regulators. Drug shortages are determined to be caused by multiple factors such as, business decisions, regulatory issues, disturbances within the supply chain, difficulties in acquiring raw materials, and manufacturing issues. These problems adversely affect patient care because it causes substitutions of effective and safe therapies with substitute treatments. This can delay or compromise medical procedures. This can cause medication errors. A management approach that includes clear policies as well as procedures for gathering information, making a decision, collaborative efforts and timely communication need to be established to handle such drug shortages in an effective manner (Ventola, 2011).
Drug shortages have been the most challenging for sterile injectable drugs. This is because they are more complex to produce and are more likely to have problems with the manufacturing process. Another issue is merging in the pharmaceutical industry which results in reduced suppliers. Quality issues are created due to scarcity of some underlying raw materials, which will slow down drug manufacturing, as well as, delays in FDA approval of new facilities for manufacturing, particular processes and drugs. Also, in 2011, the demand for over 200 drugs exceeded the supply (Chanet.org, 2014).
Many manufacturers either regularly do not deliver any notice for an approaching drug shortage or they provide diminished advance notice and they give no estimate of the expected duration (Ventola, 2011). Causes of drug shortages can include: shortages of ...
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To improve its oversight of shortages, mainly as the agency perfects the manner in which it gathers data on shortages and changes from its database to a more vigorous system, it is recommended that the Commissioner of the FDA take the following actions:
Establish policies and procedures for the use of the current drug shortages database and eventually the new shortages information system to guarantee staff enter data into the database in a regular manner and to confirm the exactness of the information in the database and conduct episodic analyses using the current shortages database and ultimately the new drug shortages information system to regularly and methodically measure drug shortage information and use this information practically helping the FDA to identify trends, explain causes and resolve issues before drugs go into decreased supply (GOA.gov, 2014).
It is not hard to obtain the same drugs from different sources so the customer loyalty is virtually non-existent and the pharmacies have to try extremely hard to sustain their consumer base.
In some instances, the pharmaceutical industry in the United States misleads both the public and medical professionals by participating in acts of both deceptive marketing practices and bribery, and therefore does not act within the best interests of the consumers. In America today, many people are in need of medical help. In fact,the Federal Trade Commission estimates that 75% of the population complain of physical problems (Federal Trade Commission 9). They complain, for example, of fatigue, colds, headaches, and countless other "ailments." When these symptoms strike, 65% purchase over-the-counter, or OTC, drugs.
...ll help the company in selling generic drugs and provide affordable medications to its customer base.
Although writing a prescription may be an easy way to put a bandaid on a problem, people tend to forget that medication can’t be responsible for curing our nation. Slowly we are becoming a country where pills are handed out like candy, causing a severe series of negative effects and downfalls. Ray Bradbury, the author of the award winning novel Fahrenheit 451, is definitely in agreement. In 1951, when the novel was written, Bradbury was able to make the prediction that the innocent use of medication would soon turn into an extreme drug epidemic, and unfortunately he wasn’t wrong. The overuse of drugs in the United States, such as mental illness medication
Some method such as audits, chart reviews, computer monitoring, incident report, bar codes and direct patient observation can improve and decrease medication errors. Regular audits can help patient’s care and reeducate nurses in the work field to new practices. Also reporting of medication errors can help with data comparison and is a learning experience for everyone. Other avenues that has been implemented are computerized physician order entry systems or electronic prescribing (a process of electronic entry of a doctor’s instructions for the treatment of patients under his/her care which communicates these orders over a computer network to other staff or departments) responsible for fulfilling the order, and ward pharmacists can be more diligence on the prescription stage of the medication pathway. A random survey was done in hospital pharmacies on medication error documentation and actions taken against pharmacists involved. A total of 500 hospital were selected in the United States. Data collected on the number of medication error reported, what types of errors were documented and the hospital demographics. The response rate was a total of 28%. Practically, all of the hospitals had policies and procedures in place for reporting medication errors.
In the business of drug production over the years, there have been astronomical gains in the technology of pharmaceutical drugs. More and more drugs are being made for diseases and viruses each day, and there are many more drugs still undergoing research and testing. These "miracle" drugs are expensive, however, and many Americans cannot afford these prices.
Almost everybody on Long Island, and probably all around the world, has been prescribed a drug by a doctor before— whether it was to knock out a nasty virus, or relieve pain post injury or surgery. However, what many people don’t realize is that these drugs can have highly addictive qualities, and more and more people are becoming hooked, specifically teenagers. But when does harmlessly taking a prescription drug to alleviate pain take the turn into the downward spiral of abuse? The answer to that question would be when the user begins taking the drug for the “high” or good feelings brought along with it—certainly not what it was prescribed for (1). The amount of teens that abuse prescription medications has been rapidly increasing in recent
The patient care processes must be consistent with the patient care processes of all other health care providers. These processes include the assessment of the client’s pharmaceutical needs, a health care plan that is constructed to meet the specific needs of the client and a process in which evaluates the health care plan to gauge the efficacy of decisions made and actions taken. Pharmaceutical care management system includes all resources needed to manage the client’s needs, which include the space provided, such as a clinic or hospital, an appointment system for patients, appropriate and ethical documentation, reporting of patient care, evaluation of decisions made and actions taken and payment of service
For a drug to get to market it must go through several stages of research and development (Abbott and Vernon). Starting with discovery research, preclinical testing on animals, three phases of clinical trials on humans, and finally FDA (Food and Drug Administration) approval (Abbott and Vernon). Out of several thousands of drugs only a few will make it to the FDA approval stage (Abbott and Vernon). Testing is a highly regulated, time consuming, and expensive process. From beginning to end the process can take fifteen years and less than one of five compounds will make it to market where it is still not guaranteed to succeed (Abbott and
The rate of death due to prescription drug abuse in the U.S. has escalated 313 percent over the past decade. According to the Congressional Quarterly Transcription’s article "Rep. Joe Pitt Holds a Hearing on Prescription Drug Abuse," opioid prescription drugs were involved in 16,650 overdose-caused deaths in 2010, accounting for more deaths than from overdoses of heroin and cocaine. Prescribed drugs or painkillers sometimes "condemn a patient to lifelong addiction," according to Dr. Tom Frieden, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. This problem not only affects the lives of those who overdose but it affects the communities as well due to the convenience of being able to find these items in drug stores and such. Not to mention the fact that the doctors who prescribe these opioids often tend to misuse them as well. Abusing these prescribed drugs can “destroy dreams and abort great destinies," and end the possibility of the abuser to have a positive impact in the community.
Medication errors are amongst the most common mistakes that have an impact on patient care. Medications are an absolute benefit if health care providers prescribe, dispense, and administer them to the patient by applying the appropriate technique. The administration of medication is a fundamental aspect of the nursing role and it is associated with significant risk, however, despite the health care team’s knowledge and devotion to quality care, errors with medications may occur. Therefore, it is important that health care providers are familiar with the most common encountered errors. Health care providers should be familiar with the basic rights of medication administration: Right drug, Right dose, Right patient, Right route, Right time, Right reason, and Right documentation and the three checks.
Specific Purpose: To inform my audience about the dangers of prescription drugs when not taken as prescribed by your physician or pharmacist.
Standards of practice for LTCP have evolved over several decades in response to a complex set of Federal and state regulations governing the provision of prescription drugs in the LTC setting (CMS, 2014). The law that regulates the practice of pharmacy in nursing facilities are developed to safeguard the health and well being of nursing facility residents. This group of population have atypical care needs that would require alternative forms of medication or more intensive medication management. Federal law regulation mandates LTC facility in conjunction with LTCP to develop a system to decrease medication errors and adverse drug events; assure proper medication selection; monitor drug interactions; assess for over-medication, and under- medication; improve medication documentation (CMS, 2014). In order to be compliance with the federal law, it is imperative that the pharmacy and nursing facility work collaboratively to develop policy and procedure that meet the regulations.
Drugs are something that has been prevalent in our society for many decades now. It seems that as our population continue to grow, drugs seem to continue to have a major impact throughout our society, then used by drug seem to have been influenced by many things, either through social or cultural factors and it have affected people in many different ways such as their behavior, their attitude and just basically their livelihood. Today our society is deeply infected with the issue of drugs, we look around our society and we see young kids are being consume by drugs, we see workers, and executive people are also being consumed by drugs. Drugs continue to play a huge role in our society because while most people
The use of illegal drugs in the United States and other countries around the world is one of the biggest problems in today community. Illegal drugs are drugs that are restricted by the government. Moreover, some medical drugs have chemicals that can help people with pain and stress. But when people are under the influence of illicit drugs, they can experience many side effects such as: liver cancer, heart, and brain disease. Illegal drugs are being used by many types of people around the world; they cost a large amount of money and negatively affect people both psychologically and physically.