Pharmaceutical Blister Packaging
Pharmaceutical Blister Packaging
BLISTER PACK MEDICATION AND CHILD SAFETY
Studies have consistently shown that blister packaging outperforms child-resistant (CR) bottles. In a 2018 broadcast, CBS News reported on a study citing “Blisters are 65 percent more effective in preventing child access to medications.” The report further states that kids can open child-resistant pill bottles in seconds, risking accidental poisoning. In a test the group set up at a Maryland day care center, children ranging in ages 3 to 5 managed to pop open child-resistant pill bottles in mere seconds.
Child poisoning from access to medications was reported in 8,972 cases in the U.S. The number of accidental poisonings was actually down since the last reported– thanks, in part, to a growing use of blister packages. Part of this is the fallibility of consumers themselves: when caps are inadvertently left partially closed or off, the bottles’ the CR feature become irrelevant, and leaves all pills exposed to a child.
This inherent flaw of bottles can be corrected by CR barriers or other child-resistance mechanisms that can complement blister packaging, such as the push-button slide-lock incorporated into our Ecoslide-RX family of blister pack cartons.
Blister packs can provide a significantly higher level of safety for children. In fact, many blister solutions can provide a child-resistant safety level of F=1, the highest child-resistance rating available.
PATIENT COMPLIANCE & ADHERENCE
Studies have shown a direct connection between calendarized blister packs marked with dates or other information, and improved patient compliance/adherence to dosing regimens.
While medication adherence is a complex issue, calendarized blister packs directly counteract patient forgetfulness by providing a visual dose history for each day of the week.
Improved Adherence: Unit-of-use medications in blister packages are easier to use, particularly for patients taking multiple pills per dose and those who have difficulty remembering proper dosage protocols. By adding printed dosing instructions on the blister pack near each dose, the packaging becomes a “reminder package,” directly impacting insight into dosing history.
Beyond the interaction with physicians and pharmacy staff, the blister package is something the patient interacts with on a daily basis, making it a repetitive communication device with the patient on proper dosing. By comparison, bottles offer no benefit whatsoever in the area of adherence.
More accurate dispensing: Pre-packaged medications in blister packs reduce the chance for dispensing errors within pharmacy operations. Blister pack medication allows prescriptions to be filled faster as no pill counting and repackaging by the pharmacy staff is required, eliminating pill count errors.
If a mistake has been made by a pharmacy staff member when pulling a drug from the shelf, blister packs allow both the name and strength of the drug to remain visible to the patient, allowing the patient an opportunity to verify they have received the correct product. On the other hand, when prescriptions are dispensed in amber vials, the patient has nothing on which to rely other than the pharmacy label and the hope that they have received the correct medication.
Improved refill rates: Blister packages make it easier for patients to manage their own supply of products. With bottles, many patients don’t realize they need to refill their prescription until they are down to the last one or two pills, which can lead to missed doses until the patients can get the prescription refilled. Calendarized blister cards can be printed with “time to refill” near the last five doses in the package, which prompts the patient to call in for a prescription refill.
BLISTER PACK MEDICATION AND PRODUCT QUALITY
Every medication package, both bottle and blister pack, must go through stability testing to ensure an adequate barrier of protection, The goal is to protect the medications from moisture, oxygen or chemical migration—all of which could have a negative impact on the product’s chemical assay and reduce the efficacy of medications.
With a blister package, each individual pill cavity protects the dose inside until you remove a pill from the package. This ensures optimal quality of the product until a patient removes each dose.
Bottles can be deceiving in the area of product quality. When a manufacturer packages product in a 500-count bottle, for example, there is stability data that allows that product to have the necessary barrier protection until the initial opening of the bottle. Once the cap is removed to fill the first prescription and the induction seal is broken, the barrier is never the same. Each time the bottle is opened to fill yet another prescription, the ambient air and humidity of the room is introduced to the remaining product inside. Of course, products sent home with a patient that are packaged in a traditional amber vialalso can compound the problem of barrier protection.
