Wolters Kluwer, Health, a leading global provider of information and point of care solutions for the healthcare industry, announces the release of Medi-Span® Hazardous Drug Handling solutions to assist healthcare professionals with streamlining their USP <800> compliance efforts while supporting employee health and safety. The anticipated date for healthcare organizations’ compliance with USP General Chapter <800> standards is December 1, 2019.
“From pharmacists, to technicians, to warehouse workers and transport teams, more than 8 million healthcare workers are exposed to the carcinogenic, teratogenic, and toxic effects of hazardous drugs every year,” says Priti Shah, Vice President, Products and Solutions, Clinical Effectiveness at Wolters Kluwer, Health. “In addition to the physical precautions taken by healthcare organizations, reinforcing handling policies and flagging hazardous drugs in your system may help reduce unwanted exposure throughout healthcare organizations and keep employees safe.”
According to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), more than 12 billion doses of hazardous drugs (antineoplastic, non-antineoplastic, and reproductive risk) are handled every year at pharmacies, hospitals and other healthcare institutions, patient treatment clinics, and physicians' practice facilities around the U.S. Employees involved in activities related to receipt, dispensing, compounding and other manipulations, administration, patient care, spills, transport and waste disposal are exposed to potentially harmful amounts of these substances and may experience hair loss, rashes, cardiac toxicity, infertility, reproductive outcomes, cancer and other symptoms.
Medi-Span Hazardous Drug Handling solutions
Medi-Span Hazardous Drug Handling solutions can assist in streamlining professionals’ access to key information on hazardous drugs (HDs) by integrating it directly into clinical, pharmacy, or inventory workflow. We have partnered with the United States Pharmacopeia (USP) to provide trusted content from the USP-created HazRx® Dataset. This important information is mapped to interoperable identifiers for use within an organization’s existing systems, saving time and sparing employee resources from translating USP data to an organization’s drug lists and inventories in order to use the information.
Available as a flat data file or an API, Medi-Span HD solutions provide organizations with essential tools to implement programs for USP <800> compliance. Users of the Medi-Span HD solutions can easily find generic and brand names of drugs identified as hazardous on the NIOSH list. Flags alert users to help determine if an assessment of risk is needed or if handling is in accordance with USP General Chapter <800> standards. Organizations can configure their systems to create alerts and also display details on dispensing, handling, storage, and other activities where there is a risk of HD exposure. Medi-Span HD solutions also provide monthly data updates from USP to help organizations stay current with new regulations and information related to hazardous drug handling.
Visit our website to learn more about Medi-Span drug data solutions.
