Hi everyone,

Our institution is re-evaluating extending the hang time of continuous infusions to accommodate COVID patients and reduce the amount of times the nurse has to enter in the room. We have not found much stability information to extend vecuronium infusion past 24 hours, which would be preferred since vecuronium is on shortage.

Does anyone have any data or experience extending out the stability time?

Thank you!

Does anyone able to share stability information for denatonium benzoate in the sodium chloride and sterile water solution (Bitrex) compound?

Thank you

At my organization we have run into issues and are looking into putting a policy in place for how to handle patient own medications that are brought into the hospital that are packaged by companies such as Amazon PillPack. These medications are packaged by date and time and usually include the number of medications, name, and dose.

Overall, we limit the use of patient own medication to specific circumstances where the pharmacy is not able to procure the medication (or until the pharmacy can procure the medication) or if the patient requires a specific brand of medication.

Apologies if its already discussed. In our hospital the pharmacists are going to patient bedside (non- COVID positive) with discharge medications and for counseling. currently we are considering every patient as COVID suspected patient in our hospital, hence the pharmacist are wearing PPEs (gown, mask and gloves) before going to the pt. room. Some organizations have suspended their “meds-to-beds” programs or
are counseling patients by phone. How its done in your organizations?

Thanks,
Saharish

Does anyone have a good process in place for the following scenarios?
1. Albuterol MDI was dispensed for a COVID patient and taken into the room, but did not get used. MDI is returned to pharmacy to be redispensed to another patient. (We dispense our MDIs in a heat-sealed plastic bag)
2. COVID patient brought their own albuterol MDI from home and would like to use it during their admission. How does your RPh check the product without being exposed?

We are trying to conserve some of our IV medications. Did anyone already extended their infusion times for continuous infusions to 48/72/96 hours? I would greatly appreciate if anyone is willing to share their current policies.

Has anyone developed a clinical monitoring tool for ICU vent patients on a paralytic drip with sedative and pain drips on board as well? Please and thank you for sharing!

Tiffany Knight

Attached is a file which may be helpful forecasting how many days of drug may be left with current usage rates, inventory, and rate of change. PHI is stripped out, but the file retains the formulas, logic, and named references for institutions to adapt to their use. The estimated days remaining is based on maximum usage in the last 14 days to assume a worst-case scenario. Feel free to change this logic as needed. Hope this helps the COVID effort!

Kindest Regards,

Michael Van Ornum
Clinical Medication Safety Pharmacist

For pediatric institutions can you describe how you dispense NeoProfen? The package insert states to use within 30 mins of preparation so our pharmacy is dispensing a vial with the bedside RN needing to dilute and draw up appropriate dose.

However, I have heard information about possible 12 hour stability? If this is true can you provide documentation as such.

Thanks for your time,

Randi Trope

Hello! Just writing out of curiosity...
As hospital COVID-19 pandemic 'surge plans' continue to develop and evolve, I wondered how everyone's roles as Medication Safety Officers were adapting?

Are most being pulled to the frontlines to staff in your licensed clinical roles (e.g. pharmacists, RNs, providers, etc.)?

Assuming yes, are you shifting review of errors / events to other disciplines / departments (for example, Risk)?