Availability of Dispensing and Storage Facilities at Public and Community Pharmacies at Bahir Dar and Gondar Towns

Background

The availability of various facilities that aid in providing expected services is necessary for the practice of pharmacy, which aims to make the best use of medications and other healthcare products and services. Therefore, the aim of this study was to assess the availability of dispensing and storage facilities at public and community pharmacies in Bahir Dar and Gondar towns.

Methods

In Gondar and Bahir Dar towns' public and private pharmacies, a facility-based cross-sectional study was conducted from July 2023 to September 2023. All pharmacy areas that were open during data collection were included in the study. The frequency and percentage were calculated using descriptive statistics.

Results

From 239 pharmacies, 208 (87.0%) of them were open during data collection, and they are included in the study. The water supply and dispensing counter were available in the dispensing area in 79.3% and 60.1% of instances, respectively. They also had adequate room for storage (92.8%), dispensing (92.8%), and receiving (95.7%) of medicines. Additionally, about 98.1% of the facilities had shaded, ventilated, and dry areas. A therapeutic order was the most often used method (59.6%) for medication organization. Merely 1.9% of participants did not employ a strategy to arrange their medications. A refrigerator (88.0%), a refrigerator thermometer (91.3%), a spoon or spatula (81.3%), a separate storage facility (74.5%), a cold room (68.8%), a lockable cabinet (90.9%), a tablet counter (69.2%), and a fire extinguisher (safety device) (88%) were among the various storage equipment the majority of the pharmacies in the survey had. Nonetheless, air conditioning was absent from the majority (53.4%) of pharmacy facilities.

Conclusion

Few pharmacies need to make improvements to their facilities in order to encourage convenient drug storage and dispensing practices, even though the majority of the pharmacies surveyed had all the necessary equipment and infrastructure. In addition to initiating the pharmacies to provide good practices of dispensing and storage, facility-focused initiation and regulation should be obtained to ensure full availability of the facilities.

Temperature-sensitive Medications in Interfacility Transport: The Ice Pack Myth

INTRODUCTION

Critical Care Transport teams use various strategies to maintain temperature sensitive drugs and equipment at optimal temperature. The purpose of this study was to examine the effectiveness of current passive refrigeration of temperature sensitive transport medications/equipment.

METHODS

Initially, we performed a retrospective review of transport durations. Subsequently, an experimental paradigm was created using a temperature probe inside of the transport cooler packs utilizing various configurations and initial starting temperatures with high and low "in range" temperature margins of 8°C (max) and 2°C (min).

RESULTS

The mean round-trip transport time was 2.5 hours and over 15% of transports last longer than 4 hours. At a starting temperature of -3.9°C, the cooler and ice pack maintained "in range" temperatures for 3 hours. When the ice pack starting temperature was -12.9°C, high temperatures excursions weren't experienced until 6 hours 55 minutes, but initially low excursions fell below for up to 3 hours. iSTAT^® cartridges remained within range between 1-4 hours at cooler and ice pack starting temperature of -3.9°C.

CONCLUSION

The current system of passive refrigeration does not appear to be sufficient for safely storing medications or point-of-care testing equipment for our transport services. This might reveal a flaw in the existing practices around medication refrigeration in transport.

Effect of X-ray exposure on the pharmaceutical quality of drug tablets using X-ray inspection equipment

CONTEXT

X-ray inspection equipment is widely used to detect missing materials and defective goods in opaque containers. Its application has been expanded to the pharmaceutical industry to detect the presence of drug tablets in aluminum foil press-through packaging. However, the effect of X-rays on the pharmaceutical quality of drug tablets is not well known.

OBJECTIVE

In this study, the effect of X-rays on the pharmaceutical quality of drug tablets was investigated.

METHODS

Exposure of acetaminophen, loxoprofen and mefenamic acid tablets to X-ray doses of 0.34 mGy (thrice the dose by X-ray scanning) to 300 Gy (maximum dose from our X-ray equipment) was demonstrated, and the samples were evaluated by formulation tests.

RESULTS

Exposure to X-rays did not affect the pharmaceutical quality of the drug content. The samples exposed to X-rays exhibited almost the same profile in formulation tests (dissolution test, disintegrating test and hardness test) as control samples (0 Gy). The combination of X-ray exposure with accelerated temperature and humidity tests (six months) also did not affect the pharmaceutical quality. The color change of light-sensitive drugs (nifedipine and furosemide tablets) after X-ray exposure was negligible (< 1.0). In contrast, tablet color was remarkably changed by light from a D65 lamp.

CONCLUSION

The X-ray scanning and X-ray exposure under our experimental conditions did not affect the pharmaceutical quality of drug tablets.

Pharmacoeconomic aspects of poor adherence: can better adherence reduce healthcare costs?

BACKGROUND

Poor adherence to medical treatment is one of the main reasons why patients do not achieve the full benefits of their therapy. It also has a substantial financial weight in terms of money wasted for unused medication and increased healthcare costs including hospitalization due to clinical complications.

OBJECTIVE

To provide an overview and examples of the financial and economic consequences of poor adherence to treatment, techniques and devices for monitoring adherence and interventions for improvement of treatment adherence.

RESULTS

New electronic devices with monitoring features may help to objectively monitor patients' adherence to a treatment regimen that can help a healthcare professional determine how to intervene to improve adherence and subsequent clinical outcome. Interventions that aim to enhance adherence may confer cost-effectiveness benefits in some indications and settings. The nature of the intervention(s) used depends on a range of factors, including patient preference, therapy area and cost of the intervention. However, there is a pressing need for rigorous trials, as current studies often have major flaws in the economic methodology, especially in terms of incremental analysis and sensitivity analysis.

LIMITATIONS

This review has focused on a limited number of therapeutic areas as coverage of a more extensive range of diseases may be beyond the scope of such a summary. Nevertheless, the examples are representative of the challenges encountered in many other diseases.

CONCLUSIONS

The clinical and economic consequences of non-adherence and interventions to improve compliance reflect the nature and severity of non-adherence, as well as the pathophysiology and severity of the disease. Interventions that aim to enhance adherence may confer cost-effectiveness benefits in some indications and settings, and good adherence can help payers and providers contain costs by extracting maximum value from their investment in therapies.