Drugs to Be Used With a Filter for Preparation and/or Administration-2019.

This chart is an update to the 2012 article published in Hospital Pharmacy on injectable drugs to be used with a filter. To update the chart, drugs approved from December 2011 to April 2019 were reviewed to determine if they require filtration and drugs included in the 2012 table were reviewed for accuracy. Readers are urged to review national standards of practice for information about clinical situations that warrant the use of a filter for medication preparation or administration, independent of the drug being given, and the reader should consult the Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved prescribing information for the most up-to-date information.

Intravenous Push Administration of Antibiotics: Literature and Considerations.

Intravenous (IV) push administration can provide clinical and practical advantages over longer IV infusions in multiple clinical scenarios, including in the emergency department, in fluid-restricted patients, and when supplies of diluents are limited. In these settings, conversion to IV push administration may provide a solution. This review compiles available data on IV push administration of antibiotics in adults, including preparation, stability, and administration instructions. Prescribing information, multiple tertiary drug resources, and primary literature were consulted to compile relevant data. Several antibiotics are Food and Drug Administration-approved for IV push administration, including many beta-lactams. In addition, cefepime, ceftriaxone, ertapenem, gentamicin, and tobramycin have primary literature data to support IV push administration. While amikacin, ciprofloxacin, imipenem/cilastatin, and metronidazole have limited primary literature data on IV push administration, available data do not support that route. In addition, a discussion on practical considerations, such as IV push best practices and pharmacodynamic considerations, is provided.

Accuracy of annual prescription drug expenditure forecasts in AJHP.

PURPOSE: The accuracy of the forecasts of drug expenditures in nonfederal hospitals and clinics published annually in the American Journal of Health-System Pharmacy (AJHP) relative to the accuracy of forecasts produced by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) was evaluated. METHODS: AJHP-published forecasts of drug expenditure growth for nonfederal hospitals (for the years 2003 through 2013) and clinics (for the years 2004 through 2013) were compared with data on actual growth. Data on actual and projected growth published by CMS were analyzed for the years 2003 through 2012. The mean absolute error and directional accuracy of the forecasts published in AJHP for nonfederal hospitals and clinics and the CMS forecasts were determined and compared. RESULTS: Actual spending growth was within the range of the forecast published in AJHP for 2 of 11 years for nonfederal hospitals and for 3 of 10 years for clinics; the forecasts for nonfederal hospitals and clinics were directionally accurate 27.3% and 60.0% of the time, respectively. The mean absolute errors of the AJHP-published drug expenditure forecasts for the nonfederal hospital and clinic sectors were 2.0 and 4.7 percentage points, respectively. The CMS forecasts of overall drug spending were directionally accurate 70% of the time, and the mean absolute error (2.2 percentage points) was not statistically different from that of either sector forecast published in AJHP. CONCLUSION: The annual drug expenditure forecasts published in AJHP have been reasonably accurate for predicting growth in prescription expenditures when compared with other available drug expenditure forecasts.