Implementing BCMA technology decreased medication administration errors in medical-surgical units but not in ICUs when time errors were excluded. BCMA technology affected different types of medication administration errors in different patient care areas.

Two strategies effectively relieve OBD without interfering with centrally mediated analgesia: the administration of opioid antagonists with limited systemic absorption and peripherally acting mu-opioid receptor antagonists (PAMORA) that selectively target mu-receptors in the gastrointestinal tract. Methylnaltrexone and alvimopan are two recently marketed PAMORA and provide a new mechanism-based approach for the treatment of opioid-induced gastrointestinal dysfunction. However, its use in clinical practice is limited by various reasons such as its relatively low response rates and higher costs. Nevertheless, at least four new oral PAMORA (NKTR-118, TD-1211, ADL-7445, and ADL-5945) are under clinical development, further expanding the possibilities for a new paradigm for OBD management.

CDSS-assisted DDI checking resulted in a 55% reduction of the number of alerts and a 45% reduction in time spent on DDI checking, yielding a return on investment of almost 10 years. Our approach can be used to refine other drug safety checking modules, increasing the efficiency of checking for drug safety without the need to add more staff pharmacists.

The incorporation of hard-stop CDS alerts into the CPOE system improved the overall rate of prescriber adherence to institutional therapeutic interchange protocols.

Bar code-assisted medication administration (BCMA) is increasingly being adopted as an additional tool in the prevention of medication administration errors. This literature review summarises the evidence behind the effects of BCMA technology on medication safety. Although most studies show an error-reducing effect of BCMA technology, compliance with the new technology after its implementation and the long-term effects on error reduction are often not assessed. Most importantly, the effect of medication error reduction on patient outcomes is limited.

Adequate hematopoietic stem cell (HSC) mobilization and collection is required prior to proceeding with high dose chemotherapy and autologous hematopoietic stem cell transplant. Cytokines such as G-CSF, GM-CSF, and peg-filgrastim, alone or in combination with plerixafor, and after chemotherapy have been used to mobilize HSCs. Studies have shown that the efficiency of HSC mobilization and collection may vary when different methods of mobilization are used. No studies have shown that survival is significantly affected by the method of mobilization, but some studies have suggested that cost and resource utilization may be different between different mobilization techniques. After the FDA approval of plerixafor with G-CSF to mobilize HSCs many transplant centers became concerned about the cost of HSC mobilization. A panel of experts was convened ant this paper reviews the current literature on the pharmacoeconomics of HSC mobilization.

A comprehensive formulary management system resulted in increased compliance to a formulary that matched the needs of the institution and minimized the number of nonformulary medication requests. Expanding pharmacists' therapeutic interchange authorities was the least labor-intensive way of managing nonformulary medication requests, and adding the most frequently used nonformulary medications to the formulary was the second least costly option.

A regimen of plerixafor plus filgrastim successfully mobilized CD34(+) cells in a median of 1 apheresis day for patients with multiple myeloma and 2 apheresis days for patients with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, including patients who failed initial filgrastim plus cyclophosphamide mobilization. Plerixafor plus filgrastim could be a viable first-line option in patients with multiple myeloma, as it improved CD34(+) cell yield and decreased number of apheresis days compared with second-line plerixafor plus filgrastim therapy, whereas it was comparable to second-line therapy in patients with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.