Management of High-Risk Medications in Hospital Pharmacies

Abstract

Medications considered "high-risk problematic medications" are those that pose a risk of injury if they are misused. In the hospital system, it is pharmacists who verify the safe use of medications for inpatients. Hospital pharmacists decide whether to stock high-risk medications that have an extensive burden of clinical therapeutics, especially eligibility. In a hospital pharmacy, we are involved in many activities that could potentially pose clinical risk depending on how they are managed. Therefore, the burden of risk management on hospital pharmacy is significant. These high-risk medications must be properly managed, and the clinical risk must be properly managed.
It is pharmacists who must determine if the benefits derived from particular high-risk problematic medications used in a hospital will outweigh the risks. First, we must identify high-risk medications, and we then need to determine which ones will be carried. We need to stock not only by providing information as a store but also by participating in a policy-making process as a member of the medical institution. High-risk medications that the hospital carries are preferably limited to reduce the number of medications potentially available to patients. As there is limited time in a hospital pharmacy, the dangerous nature of these high-risk medications increases. In this paper, we present some considerations that we need to consider, commonly stocked medications, and the history of high-risk medications using our hospital as an example. (Magro, 2021)