Drug Shortages are Impacting Patient Care, Pharmacy Resources

While drug shortages have come down slightly recently from all-time highs, there remains 277 active drug shortages. What’s more, 50% of those shortages have persisted for 2 or more years. In particular, health systems are currently facing severe shortages of IV fluids, irrigation fluids, and peritoneal dialysis fluids.¹ These shortages are placing a significant strain on a health care system that is already stressed.

Drug shortages pose a critical threat to patient care and can result in delayed treatment, an increased risk of adverse reactions, and unnecessary healthcare costs.² The American Society of Health-System Pharmacists (ASHP) has developed short- and long-term policy recommendations to directly address the root causes of generic drug shortages. These include enforcing existing shortage prevention requirements, improving transparency in manufacturer quality, and diversifying the manufacturing base.

Drug Topics recently sat down with Michael Ganio, PharmD, BCPS, FASHP, senior director of Pharmacy Practice and Quality at ASHP, to discuss how prolonged drug shortages, particularly of sterile injectable generics and IV fluids, have impacted patient care and how increased staffing shortages in pharmacies have impacted the management of these drug shortages.

“It’s very frustrating,” Ganio said. “There was a pre-COVID report released in 2019 from the group purchasing organization Vizient that estimated roughly $360 million were being spent in health care to manage drug shortages. It’s a significant amount of time and resources that are being dedicated to just managing shortages. It’s not even trying to address the underlying causes of shortages.”

References

1. Drug Shortages Statistics. Report. ASHP. Accessed November 15, 2024. https://www.ashp.org/drug-shortages/shortage-resources/drug-shortages-statistics

2. Policy Solutions to Address the Drug Shortage Crisis: Recommendations from ASHP. Report. ASHP. Accessed November 15, 2024. https://www.ashp.org/-/media/assets/advocacy-issues/docs/2023/ASHP-Drug-Shortage-Recommendations.pdf