“Cold chain at the local pharmacy level: the real ‘last mile’ of distribution. ...We need to ‘get it right’ now,” says James Soucey, director of clinical services, Wal-Mart Specialty Pharmacy.
Soucey thinks that this part of the pharmaceutical cold chain is the point where a break in adequate temperature is most likely to occur. Inadequate temperature control could cause adverse patient responses to a product or adulterated product that could lead to increased legal exposure and a more hostile regulatory environment.
Soucey’s comments came during the 5th Annual Cold Chain Distribution for Pharmaceuticals event held Sept. 10 - 13 at the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Philadelphia.That “last mile” to the patient is the subject of an increased focus at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia, where I had the opportunity to tour in-hospital pharmacy operations during my recent visit for the “Cold Chain” event. For years, this progressive hospital has used automated machinery to fill unit-dose prescriptions for patients. Unlike retail pharmacies, where scripts are often dispensed in multiple doses—say for a montly prescription—hospital patient doses change daily, sometimes several times a day.
Thomas Jefferson’s bar-code system for verifying that the right unit-dose scripts get to the right patients at the right times was impressive. Still, the hospital plans to upgrade its “last-mile” distribution to better track meds going from a nurse’s station or cart to the patient. The in-hospital pharmacies, which are located on different floors, maintain refrigerators whose contents are typically packaged in an assortment of cartons, bottles, vials, and pouches. Interestingly, I was told that while the volume of “cold chain” pharmaceuticalsor biopharmaceuticals used at
the hospital is modest in number, their financial value
is sizeable.
Soucey thinks that this part of the pharmaceutical cold chain is the point where a break in adequate temperature is most likely to occur. Inadequate temperature control could cause adverse patient responses to a product or adulterated product that could lead to increased legal exposure and a more hostile regulatory environment.
Soucey’s comments came during the 5th Annual Cold Chain Distribution for Pharmaceuticals event held Sept. 10 - 13 at the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Philadelphia.That “last mile” to the patient is the subject of an increased focus at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia, where I had the opportunity to tour in-hospital pharmacy operations during my recent visit for the “Cold Chain” event. For years, this progressive hospital has used automated machinery to fill unit-dose prescriptions for patients. Unlike retail pharmacies, where scripts are often dispensed in multiple doses—say for a montly prescription—hospital patient doses change daily, sometimes several times a day.
Thomas Jefferson’s bar-code system for verifying that the right unit-dose scripts get to the right patients at the right times was impressive. Still, the hospital plans to upgrade its “last-mile” distribution to better track meds going from a nurse’s station or cart to the patient. The in-hospital pharmacies, which are located on different floors, maintain refrigerators whose contents are typically packaged in an assortment of cartons, bottles, vials, and pouches. Interestingly, I was told that while the volume of “cold chain” pharmaceuticalsor biopharmaceuticals used at
the hospital is modest in number, their financial value
is sizeable.
