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<p class="MsoNormal"><font size="3" color="#000099" face="Times New Roman"><o:p> </o:p></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font size="3" color="#000099" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><a href="http://thegazette.com/2014/02/02/dealing-with-drug-waste-in-the-corridor/">http://thegazette.com/2014/02/02/dealing-with-drug-waste-in-the-corridor/</a></span><o:p></o:p></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font size="3" color="#000099" face="Times New Roman"><o:p> </o:p></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><b><font size="6" color="black" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size:24.0pt;color:windowtext;font-weight:bold">Dealing with drug waste in the Corridor<o:p></o:p></span></font></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><b><font size="5" color="black" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size:18.0pt;color:windowtext;font-weight:bold">Hospitals struggle to keep drugs from addicts and protect
environment<o:p></o:p></span></font></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><font size="3" color="black" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;color:windowtext">IOWA CITY – When a patient emerges from anesthesia after surgery, his nurse wants
to make sure he doesn’t feel pain.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><font size="3" color="black" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;color:windowtext">She gets a 1 milliliter syringe of hydromorphone, a generic form of Dilaudid,
from a secure drug cabinet. She plans to give her patient .2 milliliter. Even patients with open hysterectomies – some of the most painful procedures – need just .4 milliliter.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><font size="3" color="black" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;color:windowtext">She squirts the rest of the drug down the drain, where it can’t be abused by
addicts but can pollute drinking water.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><font size="3" color="black" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;color:windowtext">UI nurses disposed of an average 70 percent of each of 47,000 hydromorphone 1
milliliter syringes with waste in fiscal 2013.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><font size="3" color="black" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;color:windowtext">Portions of nearly 250,000 doses of prescription medication were flushed down
the drain or returned to the UI Hospitals and Clinics pharmacy to be wasted in the past two years, despite U.S. Environmental Protection Agency guidelines against flushing drugs.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><font size="3" color="black" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;color:windowtext">The UI Hospitals disposed of another 100,000 units of drugs worth nearly $1.5
million in the last two years because the drugs were expired, recalled or not stored properly.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><font size="3" color="black" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;color:windowtext">But the UI doesn’t know how many drugs are wasted overall because records aren’t
stored in one place, and some hospital units still use paper to track prescriptions.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><b><font size="3" color="black" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;color:windowtext;font-weight:bold">Drug waste common, not benchmarked</span></font></b><font color="black"><span style="color:windowtext"><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><font size="3" color="black" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;color:windowtext">Drug waste is inevitable at any hospital, especially one such as UI Hospitals,
which dispenses 5 million doses of medication to inpatients each year and stocks 4,000 combinations of 1,200 drugs. The 700-bed hospital deals with more unique ailments and more serious cases than any other hospital in the state.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><font size="3" color="black" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;color:windowtext">Hospitals aren’t benchmarking drug waste, so it’s impossible to know how the
UI Hospitals compares.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><font size="3" color="black" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;color:windowtext">Some of the reasons for waste, such as pharmaceutical companies selling drugs
in too-large containers, are out of the hospital’s hands.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><font size="3" color="black" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;color:windowtext">But the drugs wasted at the UI Hospitals and across the nation create a disposal
nightmare. Prescription drugs found in waterways can make animals and humans sick. Tossing life-saving drugs also adds to the ballooning cost of American health care.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><font size="3" color="black" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;color:windowtext">“There is a lot of opportunity to address the environmental concerns and identify
opportunities for cost savings,” said Janet Howard, director of facility engagement for Practice Greenhealth, a not-for-profit organization based in Virginia that helps hospitals seek environmental solutions. “The challenge is it takes time.”<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><b><font size="3" color="black" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;color:windowtext;font-weight:bold">Keeping drugs away from addicts</span></font></b><font color="black"><span style="color:windowtext"><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><font size="3" color="black" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;color:windowtext">Only about 5 percent of drugs prescribed in a hospital are controlled substances,
which are governed by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency. A 1970 law requires drug manufacturers, distributors and dispensers to track drugs from production to dispensing or destruction.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><font size="3" color="black" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;color:windowtext">“It’s sort of like cradle to grave for drugs,” said Scott Collier, diversion
program manager for the DEA’s St. Louis division.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><font size="3" color="black" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;color:windowtext">The goal is to prevent diversion of drugs to addicts. But this doesn’t always
work.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><font size="3" color="black" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;color:windowtext">A Minnesota nurse was charged in 2011 with skimming drugs off a patient before
he had surgery for kidney stones. The man claimed Sarah May Casareto told him he would need to “man up” because they couldn’t give him much painkiller, according to the Minneapolis Star Tribune.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><font size="3" color="black" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;color:windowtext">He was left writhing in pain because Casareto took his fentanyl, the newspaper
reported. Casareto pleaded guilty to fifth-degree drug possession.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><font size="3" color="black" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;color:windowtext">UI Hospitals tracks drugs from the moment they arrive at the loading dock to
when they are dispensed or wasted. To avoid overstocking, pharmacists assign a value to each drug that indicates at which point it should be reordered.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><font size="3" color="black" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;color:windowtext">The hospitals’ precautions to avoid drug theft include witnesses verifying each
drug transfer, fingerprint access to secure drug cabinets and even a drug vault with bullet-proof windows, a steel door and reinforced walls.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><b><font size="3" color="black" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;color:windowtext;font-weight:bold">UI drug data not centralized</span></font></b><font color="black"><span style="color:windowtext"><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><font size="3" color="black" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;color:windowtext">Despite meticulous drug security, UI Hospitals does not have centralized records
for drug tracking and does not examine drug waste as a whole.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><font size="3" color="black" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;color:windowtext">The best data UI officials could provide to show drug waste came from EXP Pharmaceuticals,
a California-based company that picks up wasted drugs every three weeks at UI Hospitals. EXP is a reverse distributor also used by UnityPoint Health-St. Luke’s Hospital and Mercy Medical Center in Cedar Rapids.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><font size="3" color="black" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;color:windowtext">A Gazette analysis of the UI’s EXP data from fiscal 2012 and fiscal 2013 shows:<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<ul type="disc">
<li class="MsoNormal" style="color:windowtext;mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo2">
<font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">EXP picked up 105,471 units of wasted drugs worth $1.47 million from UI Hospitals during that time. More than $800,000 worth of these drugs was eligible for return to manufacturers. EXP destroys
the rest, likely by incineration.<o:p></o:p></span></font></li><li class="MsoNormal" style="color:windowtext;mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo2">
<font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">About 20 percent of the drugs make up 80 percent of the waste. Painkillers, anesthetics and anti-anxiety medicines are high-use drugs, which equates to high waste.<o:p></o:p></span></font></li><li class="MsoNormal" style="color:windowtext;mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo2">
<font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Several of the UI’s high-waste drugs have been included on shortage lists by the Food and Drug Administration.<o:p></o:p></span></font></li><li class="MsoNormal" style="color:windowtext;mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo2">
<font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Although wasted in smaller quantities, some ultra-expensive drugs were tossed at UI Hospitals. These include two Gliadel wafers worth a total $38,000 used to implant in the brain to kill cancer
cells, and four doses of snakebite antidote Crofab valued at a combined $11,800.<o:p></o:p></span></font></li></ul>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><font size="3" color="black" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;color:windowtext">Drugs wasted at the bedside, such as the hydromorphone washed down the drain,
are tracked through AcuDose-Rx machines used throughout the hospital.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><font size="3" color="black" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;color:windowtext">These secure medicine cabinets require nurses to scan their fingerprint and enter
a password before gaining entry and then recording what is dispensed and how much is left. Another nurse must witness waste going down the drain.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><font size="3" color="black" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;color:windowtext">The problem with this data is that not all hospital units have AcuDose machines.
The operating room, which handles about 75 surgeries a day, still uses paper slips to record each anesthetic or painkiller prescribed for a procedure.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><font size="3" color="black" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;color:windowtext">The UI Hospitals charged The Gazette $525 for two years’ worth of waste records
from the AcuDose machines. Those records showed 248,246 drug transactions that resulted in waste.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><font size="3" color="black" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;color:windowtext">Because the data did not include how much was prescribed or administered, it
was difficult to tell how much was wasted.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><font size="3" color="black" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;color:windowtext">The Gazette was able to determine that when UI employees wasted portions of 1
milliliter hydromorphone syringes in fiscal 2013 – which was 47,000 times – the average waste was .7 milliliters, or 70 percent of each syringe.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><b><font size="3" color="black" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;color:windowtext;font-weight:bold">Packaging contributes to waste</span></font></b><font color="black"><span style="color:windowtext"><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><font size="3" color="black" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;color:windowtext">Pharmaceutical companies contribute to drug waste by packaging drugs in units
that are too large for a single dose, UI officials said.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><font size="3" color="black" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;color:windowtext">The 1 milliliter hydromorphone syringes contain more than twice as much medicine
as most patients need in a single dose and the extra can’t be saved because of drug control laws.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><font size="3" color="black" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;color:windowtext">Hospira, one of the world’s largest suppliers of generic drugs, also makes a
.5 milliliter syringe of hydromorphone. But it is more expensive than the larger syringe and oddly shaped, so it’s hard to stock in the AcuDose machines, said UI Pharmacy Manager Becky Triplett.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><font size="3" color="black" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;color:windowtext">Another example is Acyclovir, an antiviral medication that can be used to treat
infections in children. The one-gram vials available on the market are too large, even for adults, Triplett said.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><font size="3" color="black" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;color:windowtext">“Why do they sell it that way?” she said. “I don’t know.”<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><font size="3" color="black" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;color:windowtext">And yet, UI pharmacy officials have not asked drug manufacturers make smaller
containers, said Mike Brownlee, UI associate director and chief pharmacy officer.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><font size="3" color="black" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;color:windowtext">“Because of drug shortages, we have been focused on just acquiring the drug let
alone getting it in a different package size,” he said.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><font size="3" color="black" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;color:windowtext">The UI Hospitals are part of the University HealthSystem Consortium, a Chicago-based
alliance of 120 academic medical centers and 299 affiliated hospitals. Doug Smith, senior director of supply chain services for the organization, has heard other hospital officials complain about drugs being packaged in oversized containers – particularly
for children.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><font size="3" color="black" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;color:windowtext">“Most of the manufacturers have created strengths and vial size based on adult
doses,” Smith said. “If they want to make a product at a smaller dose, they must go to the FDA for approval.”<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><font size="3" color="black" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;color:windowtext">Despite the UHC’s size and clout, Smith doesn’t think the organization could
convince pharmaceutical companies to change their ways. He recalled asking the industry in the 1980s to produce 12 new formulas so that pharmacists wouldn’t have to dilute existing medications.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><font size="3" color="black" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;color:windowtext">None of the changes were made.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><font size="3" color="black" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;color:windowtext">“They have limited capacity in what they came make,” Smith said. “Adding another
vial is another product line. Some of it is an economic decision they have to make.”<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><b><font size="3" color="black" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;color:windowtext;font-weight:bold">Drugs in the water</span></font></b><font color="black"><span style="color:windowtext"><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><font size="3" color="black" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;color:windowtext">A 1999-2000 survey by the U.S. Geological Survey showed 80 percent of 139 streams
across the nation had traces of prescription drugs, including antibiotics, antidepressants and hormones. Most of these drugs enter the water supply from human consumption and excretion. But drugs flushed down hospital sinks contribute to the flow.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><font size="3" color="black" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;color:windowtext">Even small amounts of prescription drugs in water can harm animals.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><font size="3" color="black" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;color:windowtext">Estrogen in some lakes and streams in different parts of the country has caused
fish to develop both male and female sex characteristics, according to USGS research.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><font size="3" color="black" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;color:windowtext">In another study, male fathead minnows exposed to antidepressants at low levels
showed decreased attention to females. The male fish, when exposed to higher levels of fluoxetine, the active ingredient in Prozac, became aggressive to females, even killing them, said Rebecca Klaper, an associate professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s
School of Freshwater Sciences.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><font size="3" color="black" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;color:windowtext">Prescription drugs in water could also affect humans, but it’s harder to study.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><font size="3" color="black" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;color:windowtext">“We still do not know if there are long-term problems, especially for sensitive
populations like children,” said Dana Kolpin, an Iowa City-based USGS researcher who has studied the effects of prescription drugs on white sucker fish in central Iowa.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><font size="3" color="black" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;color:windowtext">Research such as this spurred the EPA to study drug disposal practices at U.S.
hospitals. The agency visited 12 health care facilities, reviewed disposal records of 20 facilities and talked with about 700 people from hospitals, government agencies and drug-management companies to come up with best practices released in 2010.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><font size="3" color="black" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;color:windowtext">“EPA’s goal is to keep pharmaceuticals out of U.S. waters,” the report said.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><font size="3" color="black" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;color:windowtext">The EPA recommends hospitals track every drug dispensed for several weeks to
discover waste patterns.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><font size="3" color="black" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;color:windowtext">The UI Hospitals uses several of the EPA’s best practices, such as refusing drug
samples, rotating stock and segregating waste, but officials have not done a waste inventory, Brownlee said.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><font size="3" color="black" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;color:windowtext">“A deeper dive may reveal something, it may not,” Brownlee said.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><b><font size="3" color="black" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;color:windowtext;font-weight:bold">Examining waste data</span></font></b><font color="black"><span style="color:windowtext"><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><font size="3" color="black" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;color:windowtext">Researchers with the Albany, N.Y., Medical Center received a two-year EPA grant
in 2007 to collect and sort pharmaceutical waste in some areas of the 630-bed academic medical center.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><font size="3" color="black" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;color:windowtext">Dr. Becky Triplett Pharmacy Manager at University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics
describes how pharmacy staff must divide a large bottle of medication into 15 mL, single-use bottles because the manufacturer stopped producing the smaller units earlier this fall. This process requires staff time and the hospital also losees about a year
off the expiration date of the larger bottle. (Jim Slosiarek/The Gazette-KCRG)<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><font size="3" color="black" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;color:windowtext">When the team sorted more than a year’s worth of waste from eight operating rooms,
they found propofol, a common anesthetic, made up 45 percent.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><font size="3" color="black" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;color:windowtext">“They were opening a bunch of bottles and wasting 90 percent of it,” said Russell
Mankes, a retired associate professor in Albany’s Center for Neuropharmacology & Neuroscience.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><font size="3" color="black" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;color:windowtext">As propofol doesn’t degrade in nature, accumulates in body fat and is toxic to
aquatic life, the team looked for ways to reduce the waste, Mankes said.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><font size="3" color="black" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;color:windowtext">By removing 50 milliliter and 100 milliliter vials of propofol from the pharmacy
and keeping only the 20 milliliter vials, Albany practitioners wasted less, the study showed. The savings were estimated at $100,000 a year.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><b><font size="3" color="black" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;color:windowtext;font-weight:bold">Opportunities</span></font></b><font color="black"><span style="color:windowtext"><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><font size="3" color="black" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;color:windowtext">Many hospitals are struggling to do the right thing, said Howard, from Project
Greenhealth. Some hospitals want to hire a reverse distributor, but they can’t afford it or there are no approved companies nearby, she said.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><font size="3" color="black" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;color:windowtext">Health care centers can’t donate pharmaceuticals because of the risk of liability
if the drugs aren’t used properly or before expiration.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><font size="3" color="black" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;color:windowtext">But examining waste data can lead to easy solutions, such as switching prescribing
patterns or stocking a different strength of medicine, Mankes said.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><font size="3" color="black" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;color:windowtext">“You may have some real opportunities there to reduce waste, improve the bottom
line and stop poisoning the fish and people around you,” he said.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font size="3" color="#000099" face="Times New Roman"><o:p> </o:p></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font size="3" color="#000099" face="Times New Roman"><o:p> </o:p></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font size="3" color="#000099" face="Times New Roman"><o:p> </o:p></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font size="3" color="#000099" face="Times New Roman"><o:p> </o:p></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font size="2" color="navy" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;color:navy">Deborah L. DeBiasi</span></font><font size="2" color="navy"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;color:navy"><br>
</span></font><b><font size="2" color="navy"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;color:navy;font-weight:bold">Email: Deborah.DeBiasi@deq.virginia.gov</span></font></b><b><i><font size="2" color="red"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;color:red;font-weight:bold;font-style:italic"><br>
</span></font></i></b><font size="2" color="navy"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;color:navy">WEB site address:
<a href="http://www.deq.virginia.gov/">www.deq.virginia.gov</a></span></font><font size="2" color="navy"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;color:navy"><br>
</span></font><font size="2" color="navy"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;color:navy">Virginia Department of Environmental Quality</span></font><font size="2" color="navy"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;color:navy"><br>
</span></font><font size="2" color="navy"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;color:navy">Office of Water Permits
</span></font><font size="2" color="navy"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;color:navy"><br>
</span></font><font size="2" color="navy"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;color:navy">Industrial Pretreatment/Whole Effluent Toxicity (WET) Program</span></font><font size="2" color="navy"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;color:navy"><br>
</span></font><font size="2" color="navy"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;color:navy">PPCPs, EDCs, and Microconstituents<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font size="2" color="navy" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;color:navy"><a href="http://www.deq.virginia.gov/Programs/Water/PermittingCompliance/PollutionDischargeElimination/Microconstituents.aspx">http://www.deq.virginia.gov/Programs/Water/PermittingCompliance/PollutionDischargeElimination/Microconstituents.aspx</a></span></font><font size="2" color="navy"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;color:navy"><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font size="2" color="navy" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;color:navy">Mail: P.O. Box 1105, Richmond, VA 23218</span></font><font size="2" color="navy"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;color:navy"><br>
</span></font><font size="2" color="navy"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;color:navy">Location: 629 E. Main Street, Richmond, VA 23219</span></font><font size="2" color="navy"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;color:navy"><br>
</span></font><font size="2" color="navy"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;color:navy">PH: 804-698-4028 FAX: 804-698-4032<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font size="3" color="#000099" face="Times New Roman"><o:p> </o:p></font></p>
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