While change may be constant, one aspect of pharmacy practice is certain: The practices involved in creating and handling compounded sterile preparations (CSPs) in hospital pharmacies will remain under close scrutiny. As is clearly detailed in this month’s supplement—Cleanrooms & Compounding—by Kate Douglass, Eric Kastango, and Peter Cantor, areas of improvement remain for many facilities.

The potency, complexity, and ubiquity of CSPs in health care are unlikely to diminish, nor is the utility they present in patient therapy. That withstanding, the margin for error becomes smaller as the ramifications of errors grow exponentially.

Pharmacy Purchasing & Products encourages you to read the results of this year’s USP <797> Compliance Study. There are no perfect pharmacy operations, but there are guides and assistance in striving for practice and safety excellence. USP <797> Pharmaceutical Compounding—Sterile Preparations and USP <800> Hazardous Drugs—Handling in Healthcare Settings provide such guidance.

Benchmarking itself is a powerful tool as it creates a clear picture of where a facility stands. Although perfection may not be possible, there should be an expectation of improvement, always. While varying degrees of process improvement may be needed in many areas of clinical practice, there is a strong case to be made to administration for prioritizing investment in the creation of compliant CSP and hazardous drug processes.

Fortunately, there are signs of improvement. Many practice areas in CSP production—including gloved fingertip sampling, surface sampling, viable air sampling, and several others—have seen dramatic improvement over the last 5 years according to the study’s findings. These are tremendously positive signs that we hope are endemic in hospital pharmacy practice moving forward.

It is never too late to start. If PP&P can help you in your journey toward best practice compliance in CSP production or any other area of hospital pharmacy, please let us know. We continue to be your champion in this regard.

All the best,

R. Mitchell Halvorsen
Publisher