Besides being the second year of a global pandemic, 2021 has also been a year when authorities have increased the demand on healthcare to further improve the routines for true quality control of aseptically prepared medication. In June, NHS in the United Kingdom published their Yellow Cover Guidelines and in Europe the EudraLex vol. 4 emphasized that compounding will follow GMP, including Quality Control of the final product. In 2022, the United States will release a revised Pharmacopeia.
At Pharmacolog, we have worked for more than a decade to provide global healthcare providers with quick and easy-to-use tools for the reliable verification of medication that is prepared at the hospital ward or the hospital pharmacy. In other words, true quality control, which means that you validate the final product. During recent years, European and US authorities have published new guidelines and regulations. The NHS Yellow Cover Guidelines, published in June 2021, are the most recent. They point out the importance of true quality control of the medication preparation process. Quality control is different from quality assurance, whereby you follow and document the process leading to the final product.
Paradigm shift in Quality Control
Pharmacolog’s solutions, PrepLog® and DrugLog®, are used worldwide in several hospitals and hospital pharmacies to increase patient safety and help avoid medication errors. Our solutions represent a paradigm shift in how to ensure that a patient receives the correct medication. There are other more complex technologies that can do the same thing, like High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) or Mass spectroscopy, but those are expensive and labor-intensive methods. In contrast, DrugLog® and PrepLog® are easy-to-use and provide a fast, practical method for quality control of prepared medication.
Despite a healthcare system under pressure, we have seen an increased demand for our solutions in the marketplace. Having endured a challenging 2020 with the worst global pandemic since more than a century, we all hoped that relief and normality would come in 2021. And yes, it did look promising in the beginning of the year with the availability of numerous efficient vaccines, a reduction in the number of people being hospitalized and the easing of restrictions. However, the joy was somewhat short-lived when a fourth wave hit several countries in the middle of the year.
