key: cord-0953760-9f4iy7fd
authors: Pourrat, X; Huon, JF; Laffon, M; Allenet, B; Roux-Marson, C
title: Implementing clinical pharmacy services in France: one of the key points to minimise the effect of the shortage of pharmaceutical products in anaesthesia or intensive care units?
date: 2020-05-04
journal: Anaesth Crit Care Pain Med
DOI: 10.1016/j.accpm.2020.04.012
sha: 50b575cd859fea03417378402bc9522ea48fce94
doc_id: 953760
cord_uid: 9f4iy7fd

nan

2 is partly the result of authorities seeking ever lower prices using a nationalised purchasing platform. The success of mass purchasing, by greatly reducing acquisition costs, benefits to all, especially small healthcare entities. Indeed, the fall in manufacturers' selling prices has led them to reduce their production costs by offshoring or outsourcing their production to India or China. Apart from these elements, manufacturers also argue on the increasingly drastic quality standards imposed by Heath Authorities. Thus, any defect in a production chain can very quickly lead to global supply tensions.

In the specific fields of anaesthesia and intensive care medicine, drug shortages have become implemented national supply and regulation of these life-saving medicines. Therefore, one of the lessons to be learned from this crisis is that a national policy for the management of those drugs should be implemented.

The practice of clinical pharmacy in relation to ICU or anaesthesia teams remains scarce in France, contrary to the English-speaking countries where this practice is much more developed, with great support from professional organisations. In France, the brakes on change come from: cost-efficiency modelling in the health system of a Clinical Pharmacy, Hospitals' investment choices, and training capacities for pharmacists [3] . Some clinical pharmacists, however, are now fully integrated in intensive care units [4] [5] . During the last SFPC congress, Xavier Capdevila -president of SFAR -called on pharmacists to collaborate with anaesthesiologists, regretting that he did not benefit himself from a clinical pharmacist like other hospitals. There will be a before and an after the COVID-19 crisis, when talking about collaboration of clinical pharmacists and ICU care teams in France.

Shortage of medicines : Leem action plan

Recommendations for the sparing use of molecules in tension during the COVID-19

Clinical Pharmacist Role in the ICU. ICU Management & Practice 4 -2016 download at URL

Integrating a pharmacist into an anaesthesiology and critical care department: Is this worthwhile?

Impact of Quality Bundle Enforcement by a Critical Care Pharmacist on Patient Outcome and Costs

This letter was written by the special interest group "Surgery" of the French Society of Clinical Pharmacy (SFPC) chaired by E Corbineau (CHU de Nantes)"

This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

The authors declare that they have no competing interest.