The medicine is still perfectly good. Millions of uninsured or underinsured people need the drugs. Yet the pharmaceutical industry incinerates billions of dollars’ worth of unopened, unused, and unexpired drugs each year in America. This pharmaceutical waste leads to both economic and environmental challenges. The good news is the problems companies create when they destroy unused medicine aren’t difficult to solve. Pharmaceutical Waste Why is there so much waste in the system? There are several […]

Arlington, VA — Hospital units that consistently follow standard safety precautions experience nearly 40% fewer needlesticks and other sharps injuries than other units, a new study has found. According to the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology, around 385,000 sharps injuries – involving syringe needles, scalpel blades and other sharp objects that come into contact with body fluids – occur annually among the 5.6 million health care workers in the United States. Researchers […]

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has announced that opioid analgesics manufacturers are to be required to make pre-paid mail-back envelopes available to dispose of unused opioid analgesics. It issued a notice to all opioid analgesics manufacturers to submit the proposed modification to the Opioid Analgesic Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy (OA REMS) within 180 days of the date of the notification letter. The regulatory authority expects to receive approval for the modified REMS […]

Hospitals across the country eagerly await the release of The Leapfrog Group’s Safety Grades in the spring and fall each year. Leah Binder, president and CEO of the organization, spoke with Becker’s about why her organization’s A-F grades are important. “We believe our safety grade report has an enormous impact on accelerating change in hospitals,” she said, noting when hospital leaders look at these grades it “gives momentum to safety improvement efforts.” Once a hospital […]

ASHEVILLE, N.C. (FOX Carolina) – Registered nurses at Mission Hospital in Asheville are holding a rally to highlight their patient safety concerns and other unsafe working conditions. National Nurses Organizing Committee/National Nurses United (NNOC/NNU) said nurses at Mission Hospital want to bring awareness to increased incidents of workplace violence, broken hospital equipment and unsafe staffing levels. “HCA is at it again with prioritizing profits over patient care,” said Hannah Drummond, RN in the emergency department […]

Recently, I decided to throw away all my old cancer drugs, a small mountain of orange-and-white plastic bottles. Cancer no longer deserved a whole shelf. It had been three years since the diagnosis, a year and a half since my last chemo treatment, six months since I started sleeping again. I was a healthy person, not a patient. All I needed now was tamoxifen and a few vitamins. These drugs weren’t my life anymore. Why […]

Healthcare is a highly regulated field, and for good reason. A small mistake could cost a life. But risk-averse tendencies extend far beyond clinical care to create a clunky, wasteful system. The pandemic helped healthcare providers see how nimble and innovative they could be while still providing high-quality care. Now, systems must keep up or disruption will come from the outside. “Innovation is obviously very important in our industry because if we don’t disrupt ourselves, […]