Comparing Drug Shortages Experienced by Institutions With National Metrics.

Drug shortages have increasingly posed challenges to providers, pharmacists, and patients for more than 20 years. Regardless of the underlying causes, for which there does not appear to be a solution in sight, healthcare providers and patients must deal with the consequences. There is often conflicting and confusing information published that confuses everyone.

Tramadol and Opioid Prescription Rates in Chronic Kidney Disease Patients Before and After the 2016 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Opioid Guideline.

The objectives of this study were (1) to assess the impact of the 2016 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Guideline for Prescribing Opioids for Chronic Pain (GPOCP) on tramadol and opioid prescription rates in patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD), (2) to identify if tramadol was being properly dosed based on kidney function, and (3) to identify the number of clinically relevant drug-drug interactions related to tramadol. Retrospective cohort study. Patients with a diagnosis of CKD stage IV or V or end-stage renal disease (ESRD) with a hospital discharge were identified.

Antimicrobial Stewardship by Transitions of Care Pharmacists at Hospital Discharge.

This study assessed the impact transitions of care (TOC) pharmacists have on optimizing antimicrobial use for patients at high risk for mortality at hospital discharge. In addition, this study aimed to summarize and categorize the types of interventions made. This was a retrospective descriptive study that included adult patients 18 years of age or older who were at high risk for readmission and mortality.

Transportation of a commercial premixed intravenous insulin product through a pneumatic tube system.

Purpose: Delivery of insulin products via pneumatic tubes is often avoided in health systems, as agitation may cause insulin proteins to destabilize, resulting in loss of function through denaturation, aggregation, or other processes. The actual loss of potency due to delivery via pneumatic tubes has not been reported for new, ready-to-use insulin products.

Methods: Samples were drawn from 7 commercial intravenous (IV) bags containing a 100 units/100 mL premixed solution of regular insulin in sodium chloride injection (Myxredlin, Baxter).

Updating formulations for compounded oral liquid medications in a university health system.

Purpose: The development of a compounded oral liquid medication formulary and subsequent implementation of revised standard formulations in a university health system are described.

Methods: A standard assessment form was developed to direct evaluation of published literature and current compounding resources for all oral liquid formulations prepared by health-system pharmacies. Specific variables reviewed included concentration, components, beyond-use dating, and storage recommendations.

MixMD Probeview: Robust Binding Site Prediction from Cosolvent Simulations.

Mixed-solvent molecular dynamics (MixMD) is a cosolvent simulation technique for identifying binding hotspots and specific favorable interactions on a protein's surface. MixMD studies have the ability to identify these biologically relevant sites by examining the occupancy of the cosolvent over the course of the simulation. However, previous MixMD analysis required a great deal of manual inspection to identify relevant sites.