There was a "Wow!" moment during a new medication safety education program at a Florida hospital when central materials staff reported they didn't handle any drugs.
Hospital pharmacy directors will have another year of anticipating slow budget growth in drug costs due to the ongoing health care industry trends of focusing on reducing drug utilization, increasing generics, and the slowdown in new drug approvals by the FDA, drug budget experts say.
Most hospital pharmacy directors can only dream of having an integrated computer system in which doctors' prescriptions are automatically translated into a format that makes the pharmacist's job more efficient and easy.
Hospital pharmacies might expect a new antibiotic, dalbavancin, to be available soon, since the FDA sent Pfizer Inc. an approvable letter in late December 2007.
