As a new patient, what is the first thing your doctor’s office usually gathers from you? Baseline labs and tests so they can understand your current health conditions, medical history and track your health moving forward. This same approach, called medical surveillance, should be used by healthcare organizations to monitor healthcare professionals who handle hazardous drugs in hopes of successfully minimizing adverse health effects and preventing devastating illness.  

After a bit of a reprieve due to COVID, how prepared do you feel when an inspector shows up at your door? Across the country, our clients are either already undergoing inspections or are preparing for them to start up again. 

In part 1, we talked about the basics of how to best communicate hazardous drugs safety information including making the guidelines accessible, searchable, and understandable. By ensuring these basics are covered you’ve drastically increased the chances that your healthcare workers will use the safety information and that their health and well-being will be protected. 

Like a seatbelt, a hazardous drugs communication plan is a layer of protection from potentially life-altering or deadly hazardous exposure. Most healthcare organizations meet current regulations by providing hazardous drugs handling and disposal information in physical binders or on their SharePoint intranet. However, even adhering to basic standards, this vital information is not easy to get your hands on when treating a patient or disposing of hazardous drugs or materials. 

Throughout the COVID-19 public health crisis, hospitals and other surgical centers lost a major revenue stream in the form of elective surgeries. However, federal COVID relief funds, traditional investments in commercial real estate and a rise in investments in healthcare tech like specialty pharmacy, have helped to fill in the revenue gaps. 

I am extremely proud to proclaim that Rpharmy is a Certified Woman-Owned Business! This recognition is a reflection of my passion for entrepreneurship and gives a well-deserved stamp of approval to Rpharmy and all the work we put into improving patient and healthcare safety.

Let us introduce you to one of our outstanding Rpharmy team members, Sherrel Miller. She works both behind the scenes doing the vital work of maintaining the safety databases including Black Box Warnings, FDA REMS, FDA Patient Medication Guides and FDA Safety Alerts AND she’s out in front taking great care of our FormWeb customers.

We’ve got that mixed-emotions thing going on here at Rpharmy. After 16 years, our dear friend Lynn Huggins is retiring. While we are happy for the adventures yet to come for Lynn, we’re not sure what Rpharmy looks like without her; she’s been with us since the beginning. 

The Importance of Simplifying Safety Information Access at the Point-Of-Care

A key way to protect healthcare workers is effective PPE, right? Seems simple enough except that USP <800> has outlined specific PPE requirements that vary depending on the NIOSH category of HD, how they are being handled, and in what part of the facility.