Drug Formulary Review Archives – March 1, 2008
March 1, 2008
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Transitioning patients from clinic to physician-managed care didn't work
What do you do when your successful hospital-based anticoagulation clinic has more patients than available slots? Detroit Medical Center pharmacist Candice Garwood, PharmD, faced that situation about three years ago and tells Drug Formulary Review she thought she had come up with a workable solutiontransition the most stable patients from the pharmacist-managed clinic to their physicians to continue their anticoagulation care. -
CDIX program makes alerts more meaningful
Electronic drug interaction alerts can be useful in preventing harmful drug-drug interactions, but too many clinically insignificant alerts can lead to "alert fatigue" and clinically significant alerts may be overridden. -
Caution when starting statins in high-risk patients
Research at the University of Mississippi Medical Center indicating that statin therapy reduces risk of developing all cerebrovascular events (CVE) and ischemic stroke, but is associated with a nonsignificant increase in risk of hemorrhagic stroke, is not likely to cause a major change in medical practice. -
Drug safety lapses at Cedars-Sinai
The California Department of Public Health says Los Angeles' Cedars-Sinai Medical Center's handling of high-risk drugs placed its pediatric patients in harms way. -
News Briefs
FDA cleared for marketing BD Diagnostics' GeneOhm StaphSR assay that uses molecular methods to determine whether a blood sample contains Staphylococcus aureus bacterium. It's the first rapid blood test for the drug-resistant MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus), which can cause deadly infections. -
Drug Criteria & Outcomes: The dangerous fight against plaque: The use of natalizumab in the treatment of multiple sclerosis
A chronic inflammatory disease that affects the central nervous system, multiple sclerosis (MS) is one of the leading causes of neurologic disability in young and middle-aged adults. -
Drug Criteria & Outcomes: New FDA Approvals
FDA recently announced these approvals: Biogen Idec's Tysabri® (natalizumab) has been approved by FDA for treating moderate-to-severe Crohn's disease in patients with evidence of inflammation who have had an inadequate response to or are unable to tolerate conventional Crohn's disease therapies.