Our responsibility to our patients and providers doesn’t end when the prescription is compounded. We use express shipping to ensure patients across the country receive their prescriptions 7 to 14 days before the scheduled surgery date. We also monitor potential weather-related delays and proactively adjust when and how we ship medication, including using another shipping route, to make sure patients’ prescriptions arrive on time.
Barcode scanning and wireless technology, including wireless tablets, are used throughout the pharmacy, allowing staff members to manage and fulfill prescriptions without any paper. This helps reduce the risk of transcription errors and reduces potential sources of particle contamination in the cleanrooms.
Throughout the entire compounding process, including terminal sterilization, our independent internal quality department reviews our work and methods to help us continually improve safety and quality. This team reports directly to our CEO and COO. We also work with industry leaders to help us find new ways to go above and beyond.
By following aseptic processing with terminal sterilization, we can offer 21- to 45-day BUD (average 34 days) on all patient-specific prescriptions for medications within maximum concentrations. These extended BUDs are supported by rigorous testing by a third-party, independent laboratory for sterility, stability, container closure integrity, pH, endotoxins, leachables and extractables.
At AIS Healthcare, we prioritize investing in proprietary technologies that help us achieve higher levels of quality and sterility. Our sterilization equipment runs 30-minute cycles multiple times per day, holding between one to 200 syringes, allowing us to sterilize what we need to, when we need to.
AIS Healthcare formulary medications undergo terminal sterilization via autoclave. Each syringe gets enough heat and steam to kill all theoretical bioburdens that may be present in that environment. Published data has confirmed that terminal sterilization achieves a sterility assurance level of 1:1,000,000.
Interlocked ISO 7 pass-throughs allow the movement of materials through classified environments without compromising the buffer area, helping to preserve sterility assurance.
Our patient medication undergoes 0.22-micron pharmaceutical-grade filtration, including filter integrity testing, using an automated filter integrity testing machine.
Immediately after compounding, each syringe is inspected against lighted white and black backgrounds under normal and UV light for visible particulates or other foreign matter. All AIS Healthcare staff performing these visual inspections are specially trained at spotting particulates and must undergo visual inspection competency testing as well as annual vision and color-blindness exams.
In the event of a power outage, AIS Healthcare has a diesel generator and enough emergency fuel to keep our facility running—and our pharmacists compounding—including multiple redundancies in the compounding room. In addition, multiple prepaid emergency fuel contracts with multiple vendors would ensure a steady supply of fuel to our pharmacy.