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managed to design a system that “makes sub- cutaneous injections of high concentrated drug formulations possible by reducing the required injection force, which exceeded what is possible with manual subcutaneous injec- tions with a conventional syringe.” The system they developed; viscous fluid is to be injected surrounded by a lubricating fluid. This will allow the liquid to easily flow through the needle preventing any clogging. Using the lubricant, only one-seventh of the injection forces was needed for the high-test viscos- ity tested. These results allow for more than 100 drugs previously thought to be too vis- cous to be administered using this technology. This device that Varanasi and Jayaprakash designed contains a syringe with two bar- rels, with one located within the other, and a tube that serves the purposes of delivering the drug fluid as well as a tube that serves the purpose of delivering a thin coat of lubricant so the drug may enter the needle smoother. This design allows the viscous drug to pass with minimal shear stress, which could cause drug damage as in the case with biologicals. Therapeutic gels used in bone and joint ther- apies and time-released drug delivery could also benefit greatly through this technology making administration much easier. Varanasi hopes that to commercialize his work as he and his team continue to work on toward creating new, innovative medical technology.
patients every five minutes” in January. This was an incredible pace at the time, but this pace could not be maintained unfortunately. Deborah Simonson, vice president of pharmacy services, stated that this pace could have been maintained had the resources been readily available. This means that the supply of vaccines slowly began to dwindle as time went on, which caused a decrease in vaccination roll- out. Ochsner’s online portal stated back in February that the limited vaccine supply would be cause for worry across the nation. This led to many scheduled vaccination appointments needing to be rescheduled for a later time. MedStar Health, which operates in Maryland, managed to administer 40,000 doses through late January. 10,000 of those doses would be administered to the public, with a majority of those doses going to elderly adults and the rest to frontline staff. In Washington state, MultiCare administered 55,000 doses through mid-February with 25% of those doses going to staff and the rest to the community. MultiCare made it a prior- ity to partner with local health departments and community organizations in order to identity “at risk” and underserved individuals in the community to target for these doses. Another huge issue that these health systems needed to face was technology pieces in order to track regis- tration and tracking for these vaccinations. Bonnie Levin, of MedStar Health, said that they needed “an army of people” to get this done. This process needed to be as seamless as possible in order to easily register, track, and document for these vaccines that were being given out. Ochsner Health conducted this through a mass drive-through COVID-19 vaccination clinic in which pharmacy teams applied a bar code to each syringe, which was then scanned by the person administering the vac- cine resulting in documentation for that dose and patient. Pharmacists across the coun- try have a variety of different roles when it comes to the COVID-19 vaccine preparation, whether it is preparing the doses for others to administer or taking on lead- ership as they take part in the actual vaccination process. Levin concludes, “the pandemic has been a grueling marathon for the nation’s healthcare providers, and the availability of the vaccine marks a bright spot.”
NEW TECHNOLOGY FOR SUBCUTANEOUS V I SCOUS I NJ ECT I ONS MIT researchers have developed a new technology to administer drug formula- tions that are too viscous to be injected by conventional medical syringes. The technol- ogy is described in a paper published in the August 2020 edition of the journal Advanced Healthcare Materials. Drugs such as highly concentrated or biologics currently need to be diluted and injected intravenously. This is an extremely costly and complicated pro- cess. Injecting encapsulated drugs often clogs the needle. Diluting these medications allows them to be injected intravenously; however, this limits a patient’s ability to self-administer and therefore adds the cost of a provider visit. Instead, this new technology simplifies the pro- cess and may allow patients to self-administer such drugs at home. This technology could be especially beneficial during times such as pandemics or other situations that require people to stay home or conduct healthcare visits by virtual means. Another type of drug administration known as jet injection does not require a needle. However, limitations to this method include cost and major con- cerns about contamination from backsplash. With this new technology, regardless of how viscous a drug is, it can be made injectable. The team of researchers focused on finding a way to provide high-concentrate vaccines and biologics to developing countries, specifically remote places or those without access to medi- cal facilities. With this new technology, people previously left with no treatment options can gain access to medications that would not have been possible until now. Michael Jarvis, of MIT News, writes that Kripa Varanasi, MIT professor of mechanical engineering, and Vishnu Jayaprakash, a graduate student in MIT’s mechanical engineering department,
https://www.news-medical.net/news/20200824/New-low-cost-technology-for- subcutaneous-injection-of-viscous-formulations.aspx
Source: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Journal reference:
HEALTH SYSTEMS QU I CKLY VACC I NATE COMMUN I T I ES AGA I NST COV I D-19 BUT FACE SUPPLY CONSTRA I NTS As the push to vaccinate more of the public rages on, multihospital systems have begun to maximize their efforts in vaccinating their communities. Ochsner Health in Louisiana managed to administer 39,000 COVID-19 vaccine doses members of their community in a single week and more than 150,000 doses through Feb. 22. To put this into perspective, Matthew Malachowski, system director of popula- tion health and ambulatory care pharmacy, stated that the largest clinics across the nation were vaccinating “around 100 Jayaprakash, V., Costalonga, M., Dhulipala, S., & Varanasi, K.K. (2020). Enhancing the Injectability of High Concentration Drug Formulations Using Core Annular Flows. Advanced Healthcare Materials 9(18). https://doi.org/10.1002/adhm.202001022
Source: https://www.ashp.org/news/2021/02/26/health-sys- tems-quickly-vaccinate-communities-against-covid-19-but-face -supply-constraints?loginreturnUrl=SSOCheckOnly
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