Patient Safety Standards

Pharmacy Information

USP released the first edition of the USP Pharmacists' Pharmacopeia in summer 2005. With this dedicated pharmacy reference, USP renews its commitment to serving the practicing and academic pharmacy communities through information that will ultimately help to deliver the best pharmaceutical care to patients. USP's evolving portfolio of pharmacy products and services includes educational programs and peer-reviewed articles. USP also seeks to actively involve the pharmacy community in the continuous development and revision of official monographs and guidelines for compounding, packaging, storage, and other aspects of pharmacy practice.

Expert Committees

Compounding Pharmacy

Under the leadership of Dr. Loyd Allen, the 10 members Expert Committee has created a new General Chapter on Quality Assurance in Pharmaceutical Compounding. They are developing new compounding monographs for inclusion in USP31–NF26 and have developed two surveys to determine the extent of compounding for pediatric and geriatric populations. The survey results will identify and prioritize the drugs used in these populations and assist in the development of new compounding monographs.

Nomenclature

The Nomenclature Expert Committee is composed of 17 members, several of whom are the Chairs of other Expert Committees. Dr. Thomas Reinders leads this Committee in its role of establishing names for drug monographs. The committee routinely holds discussions with the FDA, Expert Committee Chairs, and USP staff to establish consistency in nomenclature and to develop naming policies, such as the salt nomenclature policy now under revision in General Chapter <1121>. Through the Nomenclature Expert Committee USP develops content for the USP Dictionary of USAN and International Drug Names and participates in the bi-annual meetings of the United States Adopted Name Council.

Safe Medication Use

This committee's 18 members, under the leadership of Dr. Michael Murray, have concentrated on projects that include developing a General Chapter on Physical Environments that Promote Safe Medication Use, standardization of data elements for computerized prescriber order entry, developing curricula for safe medication use in health profession schools, and developing content for a Compendium of Safe Medication Use Practices. A survey was recently disseminated to establish the use and effectiveness of "Tall Man Lettering" in preventing similar drug name mix-ups. An Advisory Panel was instituted to evaluate medication error data from USP's national databases of adverse events in an effort of assist the Committee in targeting areas for improvement in the medication use process.

Sterile Compounding

The 12 members of the Sterile Compounding Expert Committee, under the direction of Dr. David Newton, are completing the In-Process revision of General Chapter <797> Sterile Pharmaceutical Compounding by evaluating more than 500+ comments received after the Proposed Revisions were published in May 2006. An Advisory Panel on Radiopharmaceuticals and an Advisory Panel on Disinfectants and Cleaning in ISO Class 5 Environments have been established to assist the Committee with the revisions in these specific areas. The committee is also working to establish new sterile compounding monographs for inclusion in USP-NF and the USP Pharmacists' Pharmacopeia.