We are experiencing an increase in events in which our Alaris infusion pumps abruptly stop delivering medications with the alarm stating "Communication Error". These are not during transport, but while patients are receiving in-room infusions. We are currently working with the manufacturer to investigate. It is unclear at this time if these events are tied to current recalls on these pumps.
Is anyone experiencing this type of error? Our immediate mitigation is to increase our pump par level on the units in case they need to be switched out quickly. Thank you.

For those with WiFi enabled smart pump updates, what is your expectation/goal for time for the majority of pumps to receive the update? And then what is actually happening? Also, how often do you do updates?

We are anecdotally seeing an increase in infusion reactions to IV ferumoxytol and I am beginning to gather more data. Our standard infusion time for ferumoxytol 510mg is over 15 minutes. We do not routinely pre-medicate patients (i.e. IV steroid), unless specifically ordered by the provider.

Does anyone have a protocol to identify patients who would routinely receive pre-meds?

Any experience with reduced reactions by extending standard infusion time?

Do you load hazardous medications such as tacrolimus (NIOSH table2) to mitigate delays?

We are getting specific requests from hospital leadership about reviewing length of stay for patients requiring long term antibiotic therapy and if there are other opportunities. Currently, most patients remain in the hospital due to the potential of IV access promoting ease of administration and/or infection risks.

Does anyone have a policy / guidance to RNs about what to do when a scan results in "barcode unreadable"? Pharmacy would suggest that a replacement be obtained, but we do not have a written policy to that effect. Some RNs will get a second RN to double check, but of course that is not as reliable a strategy as a barcode scan. Thanks!

Does anyone have a good process for monitoring medication diversion in locations with over-ride ADCs? This has been a challenge for us in our ED.
Thanks!

One of our nurse educators mentioned that many nurses move the due time on the MAR for medications. We went live with Epic at the end of 2018 and this was noted as a recent practice. (We could not do this in Meditech before.)

Example: due time is 9 am but the nurse moves it to 8 am. Nurses can give a med 1 hr before or 1 hr after the due time.
In the example above, they move the due time to 8 am so that they can give and scan a med at 7:30 am.

They would like to bundle the meds and give them when they assess the patient rather than coming back at 9 am again.

Our institution implemented Code Malignant Hyperthermia (MH) last year.
COde Malignant Hyperthermia was mouthful for the caller and suggest we change the code name.
Any institution with Code MH, how is it called at your institution? Any recommendation?

The ASHP Medication Safety Section Advisory Group will be kicking off the 2020-21 year this month and are looking for ideas around new projects or subjects for work groups. This group is comprised of pharmacy leaders who serve in different roles in varying organizations, but share a passion for medication safety.