At some hospitals, posters on the wall in the emergency department list the drugs that are in short supply or unavailable, along with recommended alternatives.
The low-tech visual aid can save time with critically ill patients, allowing doctors to focus on caring for them rather than doing research on the fly, said Dr. Jesse Pines, a professor of emergency medicine and director of the Office for Clinical Practice Innovation at the George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences. He has studied the problems created by shortages.
The need for such workarounds probably won't end anytime soon. According to a new study, shortages of many drugs that are essential in emergency care have increased in both number and duration in recent years even as shortages for drugs for non-acute or chronic care have eased somewhat. The shortages have persisted despite a federal law enacted in 2012 that gave the Food and Drug Administration regulatory powers to respond to drug shortages, the study found.
For this report, which was published in the May issue of Health Affairs, researchers analyzed drug shortage data between 2001 and 2014 from the University of Utah's Drug Information Service, which contains all confirmed national drug shortages, according to the study....
More at:
http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2016/05/02/476486009/critical-drugs-for-hospital-ers-remain-in-short-supply
