PSM2012 – Supply Chain Integrity: The Patient Care Interface
David Chen, Director, Pharmacy
Practice Sections of the American Society of
Health-system Pharmacists spoke after the morning break on Supply Chain Integrity.
Chen spoke about the integrity of the drug supply chain and the stressors that create risky behaviors by consumers. The stressors are affordability, disruptions, access and shortages, said Chen.
The top three areas where drugs are spent in the US are retail pharmacies, mail order and clinics. Chen questioned how do drugs get into the clinics? What is the supply chain into community clinics, which are essentially small businesses?
Hospitals and health-systems are bar-coding all drugs to bed side to insure that what leaves the pharmacy gets the patient. Additionally, an electronic health-care record allows for identification of victims of counterfeits, which patients actually received the fake.
Chen identififed three supply chain challenges:
- Availability and demand aspects of the supply chain – manufacturing, predictive modeling, GPO & wholesalers, large purchasers, and end user behaviors.
- Supply chain channels – pharmacies, as well as physician offices, long-term care pharmacies, wholesalers, "re-sellers." goverment and other.
- Supply chain integrity and quality – theft, recalls, counterfeit as well as returns and expired medications.
Said Chen, "ASHP believes that pharmaceutical manufacturers should be required to place machine-readable coding that includes the NDC, lot number, and expiration date on all unit dose, unit-of-use and injectable drug packaging, using symbologies that are readily deciphered by commonly used scanning equipment."
His full presentation is available here.