Pharmacy Practice News
Drug shortages continue to be a major issue for hospitals and healthcare system pharmacies, and mitigating these shortages is one of the most pressing challenges facing managers and decision makers. According to a recent article from Pharmacy Practice News, a variety of resources have been helpful in predicting drug availability – namely FDA’s drug shortage database, AHSP reporting, and individual efforts made by pharmacists and managers conducting their own outreach.
A newly developed analytics tool, CognitiveRx, uses artificial intelligence to generate predictions about drug shortages, price changes, and other trends based on purchase data from its parent company’s thousands of members. By providing hospitals and pharmacies with these predictions through alerts – a system that boasts an early detection rate of 76% since launching in 2022 – the AI tool allows for more informed decision making, cost savings, and proactive care for meeting patient needs when shortages are looming.