Spanish pharmacists draw up a consensus document to govern monitoring of hazardous drugs in hospital pharmacies
Ten recommendations include aspects related to the drugs to be monitored; the areas to be monitored; when samples should be taken; risk determination and preparation of a sampling protocol; analytical techniques; contamination thresholds; and design of an action plan based on the sampling and decontamination results obtained.
Surface monitoring allows hazardous drugs detection and evaluation of the effectiveness of current protocols for the safe handling of such drugs in hospital pharmacy departments. The evaluation should include an analysis of the efficacy of engineering controls, work practices and cleaning and decontamination processes.
