Top 10 medication errors

I love when a headline is both clickbait and accurate. Here’s the Institute for Safe Medication Practices’ 2020 list of most common medication errors. Some are general, some are quite specific….

1. Selecting the wrong medication after entering the first few letters of the drug name.
2. Daily instead of weekly oral methotrexate .
3. Look-alike labeling of manufacturers’ products.
4. Misheard drug orders or recommendations.
5. Unsafe “overrides” with automated dispensing cabinets.
6. Unsafe practices associated with IV push medications.
7. Wrong route (intraspinal injection) errors with tranexamic acid.
8. Unsafe labeling of prefilled syringes and infusions by 503b compounders.
9. Unsafe use of syringes for vinca alkaloids.
10. 1,000-fold overdoses with zinc.

Jake Galdo teaches everyone’s favorite diabetes care course

What better way to not only help your patients, but stand out from the crowd, too? Earn your diabetes certificate with this day-long course taught by the ever-popular Jake Galdo.

APhA’s “The Pharmacist & Patient-Centered Diabetes Care” is being held in Sandy Springs, February 2 from 8:00 am to 5:00 pm.

Get the knowledge, get the skills, get the confidence so you can give your patients the most effective diabetes care.

The full course includes the classroom work as well as home study. When you’re done and pass the test, you not only get the certificate, but 23 hours (!) of CPE, too.

Check out the details — and sign up now — at GPhA.org/diabetes.

Timing matters

It seems your biological clock is important when it comes to taking anti-inflammatories after surgery. They do their best when they’re taken during the ‘active’ cycle. And the differences are noticeable.

The study also suggests that if patients take anti-inflammatories either in the afternoon or at night, during the resting phases of the circadian rhythm, they can severely deter healing and bone repair following surgery. That’s because these are the periods when cells known as osteoblasts are rebuilding bone.

Total recall: all ABH dietary supplements

The FDA is recalling everything made by ABH Nature’s Products, ABH Pharma, and StockNutra.com for “violations of current good manufacturing practice regulations.”

You might think “I’ve never heard of that brand.” That’s because ABH sells to other firms, not to consumers.

The list of recalled brands is 859 long, so … I dunno, maybe read the entire list and see if you sell any of those brands? (My fave: “Allied Bait, Beverage, and Yarn.”)

(Edited 2010-02-10 to remove link to list.)

Flu shots: Go all the way

Kids up to about eight years old need two flu shots to be fully vaccinated. An Israeli study found that being fully vaccinated (that’s two shots) prevented hospitalization, but a single — aka partial vaccination — didn’t.

Brits need to see their pharmacists

Britain’s National Institute for Health and Care Excellence just came out and said it: Patients should make more and better use of community pharmacists for medical care.

In a draft of a possible official ‘quality standard,’ the government agency said that “Community pharmacy teams have the potential to play a greater role in health promotion and prevention.”

Integrating community pharmacies into local care and referral pathways, will offer people effective, convenient and easily accessible services, reduce duplication of work and relieve pressure on the wider health and social care system.”

And we particularly like this:

The quality standard acknowledges that many community pharmacists have good relationships with the local population and an understanding of the physical, economic and social challenges some individuals face.

They left this out of Frozen 2

Scientists looking at a Tibetan glacier found at least 28 new viruses in the ice cores they sampled. And if you’ve seen “The Thing” you know nothing good ever happens when something ancient emerges from its frozen tomb. Good thing it isn’t melting.

Peep!

It’s almost that time of year — time to create your science-themed Peeps diorama and enter it in the 2020 PeepYourScience contest!