Dive Brief:
- A new survey concludes that U.S. hospitals are dealing better with an ongoing shortage of hundreds of medications, but that it's costing them heavily.
- The study, by Premier Inc., estimates the cost getting drugs from alternative sources has averaged $230 million a year for the country's 5,000 hospitals, on average, from 2011 through 2013.
- Premier executives say the $230 million is a conservative estimate, given that it doesn't include costs for many additional staff hours searching for scarce drugs or having to buy from manufacturers or wholesalers with whom the hospitals don't have discounted contracts.
Dive Insight:
Hospitals aren't completely out of luck. The number of new shortages began falling in 2012, and more hospitals in the survey reported only having to deal with shortages of five or fewer drugs now. With Premier's help, hospitals have been working to decrease the shortages, in part by helping members find additional suppliers. However, shortages are definitely still an issue. While there were only 73 new shortages in the first half of last year, the GAO says, that was on top of 288 shortages of medication beginning in prior years -- the highest number of ongoing shortages to date.