Latebreakers: USP revises compounding standards to improve patient safety

USP has revised its standards and conditions for sterile compounding in order to improve patient safety. Changes to General Chapter Pharmaceutical Compounding-Sterile Preparations have been posted on-line on USP's Web site ( http://www.usp.org/USPNF/pf/generalChapter797.html) and will be published in March in the second edition of the Pharmacists' Pharmacopeia. The revisions were posted on-line to give the compounding community time to implement changes before they take effect on June 1, 2008. Diane Cousins, USP's VP of healthcare quality and information, called the revisions "one of the most important contributions to patient safety in decades."