Our facility was engineered looking towards the future of pharmaceutical care. At the time, our pharmacy was being designed and constructed the United States Pharmacopeia (USP) had not yet released the final standards for hazardous drug compounding. This chapter is known as USP 800 and is strictly enforced by the Federal Drug Administration (FDA). The vast majority of pharmacies around the country fail to comply with the new USP 800 regulations, however here at Meta Pharmacy Services, we are fully compliant due to our propensity to go above and beyond current standards of practice in order to provide the best care possible for our patients.
We have two negative pressure cleanrooms for hazardous drug compounding, one for sterile and one for non-sterile drug preparations. These rooms are ventilated through High-Efficiency Particulate Air (HEPA) filters or Ultra Low Penetration Air (ULPA) filters and are on an independent exhaust ventilation system which meet and exceed the USP 800 standards. Our sterile cleanroom is certified as an ISO 7 environment while drugs are prepared inside of the newest model Baker biological safety cabinet. All sterile hazardous medications are prepared inside the biological safety cabinet with constant vertical laminar airflow maintaining an unprecedented ISO 4 environment. With many chemotherapy medications causing a decline in the natural immunity of a patient, it is extremely important to limit all possible sources of pathogen exposure. The environment which we prepare chemotherapy agents helps to ensure there is no contamination of sterile products eliminating the IV medication as a source of infection. Not only do our negative pressure cleanrooms improve patient care, they also help to ensure our pharmacy employees are not exposed to these hazardous drugs which are also a very important focal point of USP 800.
We provide chemotherapy services for outpatient infusion clinics, specifically oncology treatment centers, as well as inpatient facilities, usually hospitals within southern Nevada. Our pharmacists have several years of experience facilitating oncology pharmaceutical services thus are able to assist physicians in all areas relating to drug therapy for patients with cancer. This includes antiemetic therapy, treatment of opportunistic infections in immunocompromised patients, and of course administration and even selection of appropriate anti-cancer medications. We have also had success treating side effects of chemotherapy with topically compounded medications including:
- Anti-nausea cream
- Chemotherapy-related hair loss shampoo
- Chemotherapy-induced neuropathy cream
- Magic Mouthwash for esophagitis
