Medication competency and your consultant pharmacist are two things that should go hand-in-hand. We all know that ongoing education and assessments are required to demonstrate staff competency and safe medication management is no exception. How are you assessing your staff? Can your consultant pharmacist help?
October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month and the OctariusRx team is recognizing the annual campaign to increase awareness of this disease.
It’s Fall Prevention Awareness Week and the OctariusRx team is recognizing and helping to spread the word from the National Council on Aging (NCOA). Falls are not a natural part of aging and whether they happen at home or in health care facilities such as nursing homes or ambulatory surgery centers, the outcomes can be devastating.
The National Alert Network issued an alert regarding wrong-route errors with tranexamic acid. The reported cases involved the accidental spinal injection of tranexamic acid instead of a local anesthetic to provide regional anesthesia. Some of the contributing factors in these cases, as well as other mix-ups, include vials with similar caps and poor syringe labeling.
Working with a Consultant Pharmacist to Open an ASC is something every organization should consider. Opening an ASC requires extensive organization and collaboration between various experts. Involving a highly qualified consultant pharmacist among your team of expert advisors will help ensure patient safety, regulatory compliance, and survey success. Are you considering opening an ASC? Have you gathered all the necessary advisors to ensure your grand opening is as seamless as possible?
Happy Labor Day Weekend from all of us at OctariusRx!
Labor Day is a time to recognize the hard work of Americans and allow a day to relax and reflect on a job well done. It’s a time for us to acknowledge all the work that we do throughout the year, and the work that those around us do.
Thank you to our team members, our clients, and vendors for your hard work. We appreciate all that you do throughout the year.
"My grandfather once told me that there were two kinds of people; those who do the work and those who take the credit. He told me to try to be in the first group; there was much less competition." — Indira Gandhi
Are you ready for the new Accreditation Association for Ambulatory Health Care (AAAHC) standards? The accreditation handbook has been updated with an expected implementation date of November 1, 2020. The new standards include more concise language, more consistency, less repetition and of course, new standards on current best practices and regulatory requirements. Is your facility fully compliant? Do you have a consultant pharmacist on your team to help you?
Look-alike-sound-alike risks with flu vaccine and insulin may not be something you normally consider, but the risk of patient harm is extremely high. Do you have a facility specific look-alike-sound-alike list? Is it updated annually and posted in areas of medication administration? As a consultant pharmacist, I have the following five suggestions for minimizing risks and increasing patient safety.
Medication competency and your consultant pharmacist are two things that should go hand-in-hand. We all know that ongoing education and assessments are required to demonstrate staff competency and safe medication management is no exception. How are you assessing your staff? Can your consultant pharmacist help?
The FDA recommends prescribers discuss naloxone when prescribing opioids or medications to treat opioid use disorder (OUD). In a recent Drug Safety Communication posted on July 23, 2020, the FDA made the recommendations about naloxone in an effort to reduce the risk of death from opioid overdose. Do you know what the FDA is recommending? What steps do you need to take as a prescriber?
