The pharmacy shall insure that all medications and other pharmaceutical supplies, chemicals and solvents are fit for use in patients or to prepare products to be used in or on patients.

1. At the time of receipt, all merchandise will be inspected for appearance and potency dating, if applicable. Items of questionable quality or whose potency period is 30 days or less are considered unacceptable.
2. Shipments of items received in a state of poor quality will be rejected. The manufacturer or distributor will be contacted immediately and requested to replace the product with satisfactory product.
3. Items received with a short expiration dating will generally be refused unless the on-hand inventories require the acceptance of the material in order to insure continued treatment of patients at UAMS. In such instances, the vendor will be contacted and informed of the occurrence and requested to exchange an agreed upon quantity of the shipment with longer dated material.
4. Vendors who ship in unacceptable merchandise and do not honor a request for replacement shall be reported to the Novation purchasing group formally by using a "vendor complaint". Items purchased by hospital or state contract will be handled with the hospital or state purchasing departments.