UVA Health working to minimize patient impact from cancer-treating drug shortage

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (WVIR) - UVA Health is tracking 300 national drug shortages. Right now, it’s cancer-treating chemotherapy drugs that are proving difficult to find.

“There’s only a couple that are very short where we can’t get anything, and that’s where we’re doing those most extreme conservative measures to save medication and prevent patient impact,” Brian Spoelhof said.

Spoelhof and his team focus on how best to to utilize and conserve medication while treating as many people as possible.

“When patients have a partial vial, we make sure to pair them up with another patient that can use the rest of that medication. We have our pharmacists looking really closely at the dosing and seeing if there’s any little tweaks we can do that won’t have a direct impact on the end care,” Spoelhof said.

Supply chain impacts are leading to some of these shortages.

“Our goal always is to make sure that the patients are getting the best care that they need and that they’re minimally impacted, and thankfully right now, we are able to maintain that,” Spoelhof said.

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