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The government shutdown and pharmacy

By Rachael Yim posted 10-11-2013 08:48

  
All that we've been hearing lately is about the government shutdown. We knew it was coming, the media knew it was coming, but still, the shock of our government shutting down (since the last one was 1995), was surprising.

I have close friends of mine who are furloughed due to it. It makes me wonder how this affects healthcare and pharmacy? From a investigational drug standpoint, the NIH has stopped accepting new patients in clinical trials at the moment, but are currently keeping with their currently enrolled patients. Try logging onto the NIH website. You can get a large red box looking straight back to you. I can imagine the number of clinical trial study coordinators getting frustrated, having worked so hard to finally get a capable patient..and then be told they can't enroll, due to the government shutdown.

But I was also surprised  when I logged onto pubmed (a blue box greets you), and then clinicaltrials.gov (a purple box greets you). I often forget these are databases run by the government. In hospitals, we seem to be doing fine admist this shutdown. However, for pharmacies located on Marine Corps Base, they are unable to order medications, due to the government freezing their funds. Active duty personnel have to instead go into town to get their prescriptions filled there. (see article here).

Even further, the CDC is also a govermental run entity, and as you know, it's flu season. Without the CDC monitoring the flu, it could possibly run rampant. Thus, as pharmacists, we need to remind our patients (and others) to get your flu vaccine.

I feel as a pharmacist in a hospital (that is not part of government), you forget that there is a government shut down, besides the annoying boxes that are popping up on certain websites. However, it is affecting other pharmacies across the nation and it is important that we do our best to accomodate it (whether it's handling an increased volume of prescriptions, to making sure your coworkers get flu shots, etc).

Your thoughts?







#CDC #governmentshutdown #flu
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