Rpharmy has been on the road again, connecting with pharmacy professionals and healthcare leaders at events across the country, including the 2025 ONS Congress. We always love the opportunity to meet with our valued customers and those just getting to know us.

At ONS, we had truly insightful conversations with oncology nurses about their hazardous drug safety programs. One recurring theme? Communication gaps. Many nurses shared that their facilities still struggle to clearly communicate safety protocols related to hazardous drug handling.

This got us thinking: “Does the pharmacy’s obligation stop at the door?” 

In other words, once the safety protocols are determined and documented, is it up to the nurses and other healthcare workers to access and follow them? 

We say: Absolutely not. And USP <800> agrees. 

 HD Safety Beyond the Pharmacy & How to Stratify Risk

How is Your HD List Management Really Going? 

Learning from other healthcare systems’ successes and even failures helps everyone better protect patients and healthcare workers. We’ve been fortunate that Erica Bane, Pharm.D., BCPS, Medication Safety Officer from Scripps Health, has openly shared Scripps’ experience transforming their hazardous drug management process from relying on an Excel document to a larger, more secure, and more effective program that truly safeguards healthcare workers and in turn, protects patients too.

Our passion for protecting healthcare workers and patients stems from deeply personal experiences. In 2000, we tragically lost my paternal grandmother to a preventable medical error—a devastating reminder of what's at stake. Meanwhile, my maternal grandmother dedicated 40 years of her life to nursing. This family legacy drives our mission every day: to protect dedicated healthcare professionals like my grandmother Maggie while preventing other families from experiencing the loss we felt with my other grandmother Billie. Our commitment isn't just professional—it's profoundly personal.

In session three of our recent Rhazdrugs webinar series, we covered the importance of integrating hazardous drug information into the EHR and how Rhazdrugs makes this a simple, no-brainer task. 

If healthcare facilities genuinely want to protect their people from the harmful effects of hazardous drug exposure, they must go beyond the basics of NIOSH. In the second installment of our webinar series, we discussed why it's important to go beyond the NIOSH list and offered some tips based on what your peers are doing to protect their people.

Is it too late to say Happy New Year? Maybe Happy New NIOSH is more appropriate? 🥳

As you know, by the end of 2024, NIOSH delivered a present we’ve been waiting nearly nine years for. This present comes with a bag of screws and nails and that one tool that never works. In other words, we’re happy to have this guidance but it was not without some serious work to get the benefits.