Patent ID: 8112290

Claim:
A method for delivering a drug to hospital patients for short-term use while minimizing long-term use of the drug, wherein the drug requires compliance with a risk evaluation and mitigation strategy approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) which is designed to minimize the occurrence of an observed adverse event; and wherein the method comprises: identifying hospitals that may be eligible to dispense the drug, said eligibility requiring that said hospitals: perform abdominal surgery or are acute care hospitals; and treat patients who are inpatients; providing said identified hospitals with literature regarding use of the drug including dosing recommendations and contraindications, and which describes the observation of an adverse event associated with long-term use of the drug; wherein the drug is a peripherally acting mu-opioid receptor antagonist selected from the group consisting of alvimopan and N-methylnaltrexone; receiving registration information from said identified hospitals; identifying a subpopulation of said identified hospitals which treat the patients and which have said measures in place to limit use of the drug to short-term use; wherein said measures comprise order sets, protocols or guidelines, residing on an integrated information system, including a data processing machine, to limit use of the drug to short-term use; registering said subpopulation in a computer readable storage medium; authorizing said subpopulation to receive shipment of the drug; and dispensing the drug to the patients in said subpopulation for short-term use; wherein the patients are hospital inpatients and the delivery is limited to in-hospital administration; and monitoring the patients for said observed adverse event.