United States Pharmacopeia (USP) <800> standards for handling hazardous drugs in healthcare settings is set to go in effect on Dec. 1, 2019. It sets the standards for the safe handling of hazardous drugs from receipt through disposal to ensure the safety of patients, the environment and healthcare staff who work with these drugs daily.

Pharmaceutical wholesalers Cardinal Health and Kinray agreed to pay $7.5 million to settle allegations that they violated labor laws by denying delivery drivers overtime wages, according to legal news website Law360.

An association of independent nuclear pharmacies in the U.S. has sued Jubilant DraxImage , alleging the supplier engaged in a range of anticompetitive behaviors that boosted prices of drugs and negatively affected patient care, according to STAT. 

 Medpricer, the leading purchased services cost management solution for the healthcare industry, today introduced mSource® Insights, its latest spend analytics and reporting tool. It comes equipped with Medpricer’s Predictive Plan, which leverages insights to help supply chains build actionable project plans around their spend on clinical and non-clinical spend categories.

Summit Pacific Medical Center, a rural critical access hospital with 250 employees in Elma, Wash., was able to reduce procurement labor expenses by 80 percent and lower shipping costs by 60 percent in two years by working with Amazon Business.

Ten hospitals and health systems have posted job listings seeking supply chain expertise in the last week:

Johnson & Johnson's acquisition of Auris Health, a maker of robotic diagnostics and surgical devices, tops market researcher EvaluatePharma's list of the 10 largest acquisitions  in medical technology this year. 

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and the Department of Defence will collaborate to create a centralized healthcare supply chain management system.

Ambu, a medical devicemaker based in Denmark, will pay $3.3 million to settle allegations it violated the False Claims Act by selling products to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and the Pentagon made in countries without U.S. trade agreements, the U.S. Justice Department said.

Ridge Properties is recalling four lots of its 4 percent lidocaine topical cream and liquid gel products due to microbial contamination. The products also contained a higher potency of lidocaine than the label suggests.  

AmerisourceBergen, one of the major hospital suppliers in the U.S., will close its distribution center in Valencia, Calif., according to The Santa Clarita Valley Signal.

Ten hospitals and health systems have posted job listings seeking supply chain expertise in the last week:

FedEx will end its ground-delivery contract with Amazon at the end of August, according to Bloomberg.

The medical device industry already has felt the sting of the trade war between the U.S. and China which may worsen if negotiations fail, according to Business Insider.

Terri Lee Doehrmann, a worker in the linen services department at Mercy Iowa City (Iowa), spends hours each week sorting through hospital linens for signs of wear or tear that would make them unusable, according to The Gazette. 

The vast majority of hospital clinicians and department managers understand that supply chain management is critical to controlling costs. But they also think they spend too much time on supply chain tasks—and many say the work takes away from patient care.

The scope and role of freight management in healthcare has evolved significantly in the last decade, presenting hospitals with new savings opportunities. 

Ten hospitals and health systems have posted job listings seeking supply chain expertise in the last week:

By 2020, supply chain expenses will eclipse labor as the major cost in U.S. healthcare, according to SpendEdge, a global procurement advisory firm.

Bon Secours Mercy Health, a recently merged 48-hospital system based in Cincinnati, was able to drive $2.1 million in savings in its supply chain in one week, the health system announced in July.