Developing national level high alert medication lists for acute care setting in Korea

Background@#High-alert medications (HAMs) are medications that bear a heightened risk of causing significant patient harm if used in error. To facilitate safe use of HAMs, identifying specific HAM lists for clinical setting is necessary. We aimed to develop the national level HAM list for acute care setting. @*Methods@#We used three-step process. First, we compiled the pre-existing lists referring HAMs. Second, we analyzed medication related incidents reported from national patient safety incident report data and adverse events indicating medication errors from the Korea Adverse Event Reporting System (KAERS).We also surveyed the assistant staffs to support patient safety tasks and pharmacist in charge of medication safety in acute care hospital. From findings from analysis and survey results we created additional candidate list of HAMs. Third, we derived the final list for HAMs in acute care settings through expert panel surveys. @*Results@#From pre-existing HAM list, preliminary list consisting of 42 medication class/ingredients was derived. Eight assistant staff to support patient safety tasks and 39 pharmacists in charge of medication safety responded to the survey. Additional 44 medication were listed from national patient safety incident report data, KAERS data and common medications involved in prescribing errors and dispensing errors from survey data. A list of mandatory and optional HAMs consisting of 10 and 6 medication classes, respectively, was developed by consensus of the expert group. @*Conclusion@#We developed national level HAM list for Korean acute care setting from pre-existing lists, analyzing medication error data, survey and expert panel consensus.

Quantitative Determination of Bakkenolide D in Petasites japonicus and Farfugium japonicum by HPLC/UV

A quantitative analysis of bakkenolide D in the different parts of Petasites japonicus and Farfugium japonicum was performed by HPLC. A gradient HPLC elution system with a mobile phase consisting of water:acetonitrile solution (20:80 to 0:100 for 45 min) was followed and an INNO C₁₈ column was used for the chromatographic separation. The injection volume, flow rate, and UV detection were 10 µL, 1 mL/min, and 290 nm, respectively. Results show that both species showed the highest amount of bakkenolide D in the roots being 107.203 and 166.103 mg/g for P. japonicas and F. japonicum, respectively. Content analysis on the different parts of both plants displayed remarkably lower values which ranged from 0.403 – 4.419 and 7.252 – 32.614 mg/g for P. japonicas and F. japonicum, respectively. The results show that the roots of both plants are rich in bakkenolide D showing a promising use in the development of nutraceuticals and industrial application of the compound.