How Monument Health mitigates national drug shortages

RAPID CITY, S.D. (KEVN) -If you’re having trouble finding your medicine you’re not alone.

The FDA currently has 126 items on its drug shortage list. Many factors can cause medicine shortages from manufacturing and quality problems to delays and discontinuations of certain drugs. Scott Peterson the senior director of outpatient care and pharmacy operations at Monument Health says that “drug shortages have been ongoing for the last 20 years.” When shortages pop up the priority is that patients in need of the medication can receive the treatment that they need for their complete course of therapy. Peterson added, “We utilize various resources to get medications we have a primary whole seller, and we also use secondary whole sellers and other sources of medication, so we specialists that work with this very closely and they know where we can obtain product when it is in shortage.” If the pharmacy cannot get ahold of the needed medications ... they will work together with patients and providers to find new treatments that are similar to or better than the original.

Worldwide drug shortage list.

Copyright 2023 KEVN. All rights reserved.