Statewide Approaches to Drug Shortages

Rationale:

Drug shortages have persisted as barriers to successful patient care for years. Shortages of essential drugs have become routine and frequently impact critical niches such as chemotherapeutics, antibiotics, and electrolyte solutions.

Plan:

Our team collaborated to interview health care providers in the state of Michigan to understand their experiences in mitigating past and present drug shortage problems [article by Chen et al.]. It became clear that while institutions were facing similar drug shortage problems, they were addressing them very differently and often in isolation.

We then developed and implemented in a limited number of health systems an inter-institutional regional online platform to share information and enable drug shortage management across institutions, planning to assess its use and value to healthcare institutional personnel managing shortages.

Status:

The pilot was implemented, but the COVID-19 pandemic began shortly thereafter, and the project was paused.

DECIDERS role: Advisors

Collaborators:

Emily Chen

Sam Harrison

Iman Al

Ibtihal Makki

Stanley S. Kent

Andrew Shuman

Support provided by:

Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan Foundation

Center for Bioethics and Social Sciences in Medicine