Vizient, a healthcare performance improvement company, released a list of essential drugs that, if in short supply, pose the greatest threat to hospitals' ability to provide immediate and high quality patient care.
The list contains 200 drugs compiled from a review of the World Health Organization's essential medicines list, the Advanced Cardiac Life Support and Pediatric Advanced Life Support algorithms and drugs that Vizient's partner hospitals included in their critical drugs lists.
The drugs are split into three categories: Acute treatment drugs (those that are used in critical cases to sustain life and have no alternatives); chronic treatment drugs (those that are used to treat chronic conditions and don't have alternatives); and high impact drugs (those that have alternatives, but the alternatives are less clinically desirable or more difficult to use).
As of Jan. 27 when the list was published, Vizient said 37 percent of the 200 drugs on the full list are in short supply in hospitals across the country.
Below is a list of 25 of the drugs included in Vizient's report, as well as their categories:
Editor's note: This list is in alphabetical order and doesn't reflect a ranking of the most critical drugs.
- Acetylcysteine injection (Acute treatment)
- Acyclovir Sodium injection (High impact)
- Adenosine injection (Acute treatment)
- Albumin Human injection (High impact)
- Albuterol Sulfate Inhalation (High impact)
- Allopurinol injection (High impact)
- Alprostadil injection (Acute treatment)
- Alteplase Recombinant injection (Acute treatment)
- Aminocaproic Acid (High impact)
- Aminophylline injection (Acute treatment)
- Amiodarone HCl injection (Acute treatment)
- Amoxicillin oral (High impact)
- Amoxicillin/Clavulanate Potassium Oral (High impact)
- Amphotericin B Lipid Complex (High impact)
- Amphotericin B Deoxycholate injection (High impact)
- Ampicillin injection (High impact)
- Ampicillin Sodium /Sulbactam Sodium injection (High impact)
- Argatroban injection (High impact)
- Asparaginase (High impact)
- Aspirin tablet (Acute treatment)
- Atropine injection (Acute treatment)
- Atropine Sulfate opth (High impact)
- Azathioprine Sodium injection (High impact)
- Azithromycin injection (High impact)
- Aztreonam injection (High impact)
Find the full list here.
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