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High-Performance Pharmacy Compounding Equipment to Optimize Sterile Preparation and Handling

Aug
21
Dave Dempsey

 

 

The use of automation healthcare technology equipment is fast becoming a major trend in the clinical and pharmaceutical industries as it offers advantages such as laboratory efficiency as well as product safety and quality. While there are still many small to medium-scale pharmacies today that employ manual compounding systems and not keeping up with the trend, these compounding pharmacies are optimizing their safe drug handling protocols in compliance with the guidelines of United States Pharmacopeia (USP) Chapter Pharmaceutical Compounding—Sterile Preparations.

To counter the alarming issue on contaminated compounded medications deemed by clinicians in the U.S. to cause major disease outbreaks and adverse health reactions, prominent organizations and regulatory board such as the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists (ASHP), the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), and the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), among others, began strictly implementing the USP.

The primary purpose of the USP Chapter 797 is to ensure precision in every composition as well as sterility in drug compounding and preparations by regulating pharmaceutical laboratories, the compounding equipment used, and its work protocols for optimum patient safety and protection.

Multidisciplinary healthcare services including physical rehabilitation, therapy treatments, invasive surgeries, and diagnostic imaging, to name a few, have long benefited from state-of-the-art compounding equipment. Since safety concerns on the practice of pharmacy compounding were raised, more and more practitioners are also working on improving sterile preparations programs and practices to ensure zero errors in compounding to address the question on how patients can be assured of safe compounded medications.

Pharmacy compounding is a traditional technique of combining medicine ingredients according to precise dosage and potency to meet the specific requirements of the patients. Most pharmaceutical laboratory technicians, on the other hand, manually compound medications to ensure zero contamination with the aid of leading-edge pharmacy compounding equipment like biological safety cabinets, laminar flow hoods, and containment pharmacy isolators, instead of the automated technologies available. As such, manual pharmaceutical compounding practices are still proven effective in terms of safety and sterility.

Whether manual or automated, lab-grade compounding pharmacy equipment is crucial in further improving the standard of care in today’s pharmaceutical industry when it comes to personalizing medications to fit the unique requirements of every patient.

Discovery Scientific Solutions (DSS) offers a comprehensive line of top quality compounding pharmacy equipment including biological safety cabinets and laminar flow workbenches that are low-cost, efficient, and ideal for performing high-precision compositions with zero contamination. DSS carries a wide range of laboratory products for compounding pharmacy applications.

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