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When handling medicines in hospitals, not only the correct dose and application is important, but also the storage of the medicines. External influences such as humidity, heat, light and cold are factors that can impair the effectiveness of medicines. This, in turn, can have health effects on the patient, as decomposition substances are released, for example. Efficient and safe medication management in hospitals, therefore, also includes proper medication storage, to which strict guidelines apply.
Every institution that dispenses medicines to patients must follow the proper storage regulations of medicines to ensure the safety, efficacy and quality of the medicines. This also applies to the storage of medicines in hospitals.
The storage of medicines is prescribed on the manufacturer's instructions, which can be found on the outer packaging or on the patient information leaflet. This information is based on tests to check the stability of the medicines.
If the conditions for proper storage of medicines in hospitals are observed, the medicine is safe to use until the stated expiry date.
The manufacturer's instructions specify the exact temperatures under which the medicines must be stored. There are medicines that need to be refrigerated and medicines that can be stored at room temperature.
For refrigerated medicines, the refrigerator temperature must be checked constantly. DIN 58345 regulates details of medicine refrigerators, specifying, for example, an acoustic and visual signal in the event of a power failure, a lockable door and an adjustable temperature.
If there is no information about the temperature on the packaging, the medicine can be stored at room temperature. Therefore, the following can be used, for example
Hospitals should store the medicines in such a way that unauthorised persons cannot access them. Therefore, you should use certified safes in hospital pharmacies that have resistance grade I or higher according to EN 1143-1.
Automated dispensing cabinets are a suitable solution for the points of care.
Control plays an important role in the storage of medicines: for example, the temperatures of medicines requiring refrigeration must always be checked and documented. However, you should also regularly check the expiry date of all medicines. For this purpose, note the date of opening on the packaging, so that you can always keep track of when which medicine has expired and should no longer be used.
Medication management software also helps with inventory control in medication storage by checking which medications have expired, both in the package and in unit doses.
To ensure that medicines are stored in a dry place, protected from light and at the right temperatures, you should set up the medicine storage in a place where medicine cabinets or medicine refrigerators do not face the sun directly. Therefore, rooms that are north-facing and not affected by direct sunlight are best suited for medication storage in hospitals.
For the storage and picking of refrigerated and non-refrigerated medicines, automation solutions such as the BoxPicker are suitable, via which medicines can be stored safely and removed quickly. Thanks to its integrated cooling module, the BoxPicker is ideally suited to storing medicines with different storage temperature requirements.
Most hospitals work according to the FIFO principle in their medication storage: first-in-first-out. The package with the shortest expiry date is placed at the front and used first, while medicines with a longer shelf life are stored further back. This principle is applied to both medicines that require refrigeration and those that do not and is adopted autonomously by automation solutions.
In Germany for instance, there is no uniform regulation for the disposal of medicines and pharmaceuticals. Instead, disposal is handled differently depending on the city and municipality. For example, depending on the municipality, the following options are offered for the disposal of expired medicines: pharmacies, recycling centres, mobile hazardous waste collection centres.
