October is American Pharmacists Month – time to recognize pharmacists’ contributions to health care and all they do for their communities. To celebrate, we’re publishing a series of posts this month about milestones in pharmaceutical history that have immeasurably advanced drug safety and improved public health. In this post, we take a look at the “thalidomide tragedy” that launched the drug approval and monitoring systems in place at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) today. Thalidomide on the Global Market Immediately after the stressful years of the Great Depression and WWII, Americans and Europeans reported an increase in insomnia. To prevent sleeplessness, tranquilizers and sleeping pills were prescribed worldwide more than ever before. By the mid-20th century, one out of seven …
Posts about Pharmacy (5)
October is American Pharmacists Month – a time to recognize the contributions of pharmacists to health care in their communities. In their honor, we’ll be publishing a series of posts about milestones in pharmaceutical history that have immeasurably advanced drug safety and improved public health. In our first post, we celebrate the discovery of penicillin by Alexander Fleming in 1928, which launched the modern antibiotic revolution. Fleming’s Fortunate Accident with Mold In the late 19th century, scientists for the first time began publishing accounts of the antibacterial properties of molds, but they were unable to determine what process was causing this effect. A Scottish physician, bacteriologist, and pharmacologist, Alexander Fleming, was the first scientist not only to identify and …
Most pharmacies use heating and cooling systems to maintain proper temperatures. While an individual location might experience an occasional peak in temperature, the analytics team at SmartSense is interested in large-scale trends visible across the country and throughout the year. As we gather large volumes of data with our customers, we are able to examine these patterns and reflect on how well these systems perform, relative to the optimal range for maintaining pharmaceutical products. An excursion occurs when the ambient temperature rises above the desired range (or goes below that range, but this post will focus on warm excursions). If an excursion is too long or too hot, pharmaceuticals can quickly spoil, rendering it ineffective. For ideal storage of vaccines and other …
As more companies enter the pharmaceutical market, it will be important to differentiate services to attract and retain customers. One way to do this is to take advantage of technology to get ahead of the curve and improve customer satisfaction. Many pharmacies today are looking for solutions that improve patient outcomes, a goal that should be cornerstone to every pharmacy. On top of the need to differentiate, brands need to consider how a poor customer experiences can influence success. It only takes one piece of bad publicity to tarnish a brand, and building up trust after an incident can be extraordinarily challenging. With advances in IoT, pharmacies can drive greater operational efficiency while protecting their customers and their brand. So how can you leverage technology to …
Most non-refrigerated pharmaceuticals come with the recommendation on the package that you store them in a “cool, dry place.” Continuous and automated temperature monitoring makes it easy to follow the “cool” part of these recommendations by changing the temperature of a cooler or freezer when alerted. Wisconsin’s Board of Pharmacy has recently become the first to make a recommendation on how to interpret the “dry” part of the recommendation. Their regulation reads: “Wis. Adm. Code Phar 6.075: Temperature; Humidity 1 (b) “Dry place” means a place that does not exceed 40 percent average relative humidity at 68 degree Fahrenheit or the equivalent water vapor pressure at other temperatures.” At first glance, this is a little complicated. While most are familiar with the discomfort that …
Pharmacies have an obligation to store, deliver, and administer life-saving medications and vaccines. Since patients depend on them and costs are high, maintaining pharmaceuticals at their optimal temperature is paramount to both ensure their efficacy and minimize risk. Different products require various storage temperatures, so it’s important that your pharmacies are equipped with the proper refrigerator and freezer units. Here’s where it gets tricky: Scheduling manual checks of each unit throughout the day proves challenging when pharmacists are busy with patients. A digital, remote, continuous temperature monitoring system that connects all of your storage units in a single centralized system cuts out the manual requirement, so pharmacists can focus on patients. It’s also the most …