Analysis of Healthcare Costs Incurred in Regional Hospitals in Andalusia (Spain) during the COVID-19 Pandemic.

(1) Background: The global health crisis caused by the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic has led to extreme overloading of different public healthcare systems worldwide. The Spanish Public Healthcare System is one of them. This study aimed to conduct a comparative cost analysis to assess the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on small- and medium-sized regional hospitals in Andalusia (Spain).

Identification and prioritisation of risks in a hospital pharmacy using healthcare failure mode and effect analysis.

Objectives: The goals of this project included identifying the processes and subprocesses performed in hospital pharmacies, identifying potential adverse events, detecting failure modes and the causes of errors, prioritising the risks identified and designing a map of risks for hospital pharmacies.

Methods: A task force composed of hospital pharmacy staff was committed to update the diagram of processes and design a map of processes performed in hospital pharmacies. Risks were identified by failure mode and effect analysis annd prioritised according to their risk priority index (RPI) and criticality.

[Biosimilars, the journey has begun].

According to the European Medicine Agency, a "biosimilar" is a biological medicinal product that contains a version of the active substance of an original biological medicinal product (reference or innovative medicinal product) that has been authorized in the European Economic Area. The similarity to the reference medicinal product in terms of quality, biological activity, safety and efficacy needs to be set on a comprehensive comparability basis. The generic standard approach (demonstration of bioequivalence with a reference medicinal product by appropriate bioavailability studies), which is applicable to a wide range of chemically derived medicinal products, is not sufficient to prove the similarity of biotechnology derived products due to their structural complexity.