Dive Brief:
- Hospital leaders have become concerned over the safety risks posed by drugs released by compounding pharmacies.
- One step they're taking to avoid the risk of serious harm and death from compounded drugs is to build their own compounding pharmacies, as Scripps Health System did two years ago at a cost of $3.5 million.
- Scripps has cancelled contracts with all but two of its external compounding pharmacies and brought most operations in house, a move which should save it about $1.2 million per year.
Dive Insight:
Compounding pharmacies have a place in healthcare, but their product can cause major problems if not managed properly. Bringing the function in-house, and automating functions where possible -- at Scripps, a human being won't even touch the product in many cases -- is a sensible way to reduce risk. If that isn't feasible, hospitals can succeed by aggressively monitoring their compounding pharmacy partners, keeping a close check on quality management, pharmacy practice and the individual backgrounds of those who run the facility. Either way, hospitals take more responsibility for the final result.