When taking medications, it’s essential to be able to identify them quickly and securely. Doing this can prevent drug interactions, side effects, or counterfeit drugs from entering your system.
One way to guarantee you know what medications you’re taking is by creating a medication list. That way, if something appears amiss with your drugs, you can consult with your doctor immediately.
Expiration Dates
Expiration dates are a legal requirement for all commercial drugs. They serve to alert users when the manufacturer can no longer guarantee the safety and efficacy of a medication.
Although some medications lose effectiveness after their expiration date, many remain safe and effective years beyond that. According to studies conducted by the FDA’s Shelf Life Extension Program, 80% of 128 drugs tested were still active and safe years after their original expiration date.
The expiration date of a medicine can differ based on how it’s stored. Medicines stored in warm or wet environments may lose their potency and effectiveness faster.
Therefore, it’s essential to adhere to the storage instructions on the label and store all prescription medicines in their original containers. Ideally, these should be kept in a cool, dry place away from light and heat sources such as a refrigerator.
Lot Numbers
Healthcare professionals, patients, or anyone wanting to understand medications must be able to identify them accurately. This includes knowing their name, what they’re used for, potential side effects and more.
Lot numbers are essential when it comes to identifying medications. These unique identifiers allow healthcare professionals to track a product’s production history as well as quality control data.
A lot number is typically located near the expiration date, under dosing instructions or on a drug bottle. It may also be printed on blister packs, foil packaging or the box that the medication comes in.
Medications are an integral part of any healthcare business, and knowing where to locate them can save your business both time and money. This is especially true when recalls occur – up to 400 products are recalled annually in the US alone – so being prepared for these emergencies is paramount.
Manufacturer
The manufacturer of medications is the person or company who manufactures and distributes a drug to wholesalers, retail pharmacy chains, mail-order pharmacies, specialty pharmacies, hospital chains and health plans. With this authority over prescription drug prices, manufacturers assess expected demand and future competition to calculate wholesale acquisition cost (WAC), or “list price” of the drug before discounts or rebates are applied.
Furthermore, the manufacturer must guarantee their product meets stringent quality requirements. This plays a significant role in determining whether drugs are secure and efficient to use.
In the United States, pharmaceutical manufacturing is increasingly moving overseas – particularly for APIs (active ingredients), which form the base drugs for pills, capsules or injections. As of August 2019, only 28 percent of API suppliers to the US market were domestically-based.
Appearance
Recently, regulators and manufacturers have paid more attention to how and when a medicine enters the market. Furthermore, they are paying closer attention to what a medication contains and how it’s delivered. One of the most exciting parts of all this is that we now have access to more products than ever before. But which ones appeal most to patients – those with multiple medical conditions or needing to manage chronic illness? As we all know, taking the right medication at the right time can mean the difference between life or death; with some effort we all stand to benefit from an efficient system for managing our medications better.
