Quality assurance for pharmacy-prepared sterile products in hospitals and home infusion facilities

This issue of AJHP (page 2591) includes the results of the second national survey of quality assurance activities for pharmacy-prepared sterile products in hospitals and the first such survey data for home infusion facilities. Since the 1991 publication of the first survey,(1) ASHP has developed and published a Technical Assistance Bulletin (TAB) on Quality Assurance for Pharmacy-Prepared Sterile Products.(2) The current survey results demonstrate that hospital pharmacies have substantially improved their quality assurance procedures for preparing these products. Also encouraging is the widespread use of the ASHP TAB:79% of hospitals and 78% of home infusion facilities said they used the TAB in developing their policies and procedures for sterile product compounding.