Severe drug shortages impose heavy costs on hospital pharmacies: senate bill might help ... or not.

摘要

Paul Allen, PharmD, has been a hos-pital pharmacist for 25 years. As Associate Vice President of Pharmacy Services at Norton Healthcare, Inc., in Louisville, Ky., he says that he has never seen the drug shortage situation so severe. An analysis published by the Premier Healthcare Alliance in March 2011 claimed that over the course of a six-month period in 2010 (from July to December), more than 240 drugs were either in short supply or completely unavailable, and more than 400 generic varieties had been back-ordered for five or more days.