During the 21th century, drug shortages, in rapidly increasing frequency, posed severe and numerous difficulties to the American health system. Drug shortages are caused by various factors: shortage of raw materials, quality issues, regulatory problems, business and economic issues, and so on. These problems have harmful impacts on patients, health care facilities, federal regulators, and drug distributors mentally, physically, financially, or reputationally. The reason is that doctors have to use substitutive medicine or change the treatment procedures, which may cause safety risks and costly but futile expenditure. People still lack an effective method to solve the drug shortage crisis as it is a complicated and long lasting problem. Fortunately, there are several ways to circumvent or minimize the impact of the crisis. In order to generate a perfect plan to manage drug shortages, health care systems need efficient information-gathering, avid collaborations, and timely communication. The major causes of drug crises are the slack warning system and manufacturing hardships. The author advises the healthcare systems to use wise strategies, such as establishing effective interactions between health systems and sites and identifying alternative drugs or therapeutic equivalents, to navigate through drug shortages. The resources of this essay are from Google Scholar, under the topics of the causes, effects, and managements of drug crises. This paper discusses the causes and effects of drug shortages, and puts forward some suggestions on management strategies.