Good afternoon,
for those that may be impacted, how are you navigating this NS vial shortage? What alternatives are you offering to your nursing staff for med dilution on the floor? Hoping to learn from others

Thank you!

Good afternoon everyone -
We are seeing shortage of NS vials for dilution of medications for IV push. Appreciate insight from any facilities that may be encountering the same on how you plan to approach.

Thanks

For patients that have a change in route of administration during hospital stay, how do your facilities approach modification of the routes and formulation for medications?

For example, for a patient that is intubated during inpatient stay and now requires med administration via NG, does the provider modify all orders or does pharmacy/nursing play a role in the process?

Does your EHR have any clinical decision support to assist in proper route of administration when the patient diet status is NPO, NG, etc.

What is the process at other facilities when a patient's oral intake status changes?

For example, when a patient is intubated during a hospital stay requires meds via NG (compared to previous PO admin), is your pharmacy involved in changing routes of medications or is this left to the provider to review and reconcile?

Does your EHR utilize any CDS to inform care team members of changes in route of administration?

We are looking at technician training and retention, like I am sure many are. This boarders between operations and safety. IN particular we want to: 1) visually signal to our technicians that we are investing in them and their career path and 2) ensuring the quality components (such as training/educating the "why" to avoid short-cuts and work-arounds, helping ensuring adequate training and ongoing education, ensuring training matches practice, and there is a certain level personal commitment.

Questions:

We have been doing a literature review to determine the most effective safety mechanism in preventing medication errors when using ADCs. We are trying to identify whether witness upon removal or interactive pop-up alerts lead to less medication errors.

Has anyone found data to support one over the other in certain situations or done an internal data analysis to determine which is more effective? How are you currently using these safety features and on which medications?

Thank you in advance for your input!
Kindly,
Carley

Good Morning,
I have been looking in the literature to determine the most effective safety mechanism in preventing medication errors when using ADCs. We are trying to identify whether witness upon removal or interactive pop-up alerts lead to less medication errors.

Has anyone found literature comparing the efficacy of these or completed an internal data analysis? How are you currently using these features in your system and on which medications?

Thank you in advance for your insight!

Kindly,
Carley

We are in the process of evaluating our medication administration guidelines that were historically developed for the inpatient setting and how they are applied to the ambulatory infusion setting.

For example (in the infusion center patients may receive alteplase lock flushes (Cathflo), but not alteplase infusions or bolus doses). Does your institution have drug specific guidelines for the ambulatory infusion setting or a policy/guideline with guiding principles for what can be administered in the infusion room setting that you would be willing to share?

When you compound your chemotherapy preparations, do you account for overfill vs the final labeled volume?
1. Remove "estimated" volume of overfill.
2. Add "estimated" volume of overfill to the final volume on the label.
3. Pump bags to exact base fluid volume stated on the label.
4. Do not account for overfill in the final volume stated on the label.

When you compound your chemotherapy preparations, do you account for overfill vs the final labeled volume?
1. Remove "estimated" volume of overfill.
2. Add "estimated" volume of overfill to the final volume on the label.
3. Pump bags to exact base fluid volume stated on the label.
4. Do not account for overfill in the final volume stated on the label.