Carrier fluids for small volume IV antibiotics

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Fri, 05/29/2020 - 17:41
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Sarah Durham
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Joined: 01/15/2020 - 12:14
Carrier fluids for small volume IV antibiotics

I am wondering if others have a process or protocol for allowing nursing to pull out carrier fluids for administering small volume IV antibiotics?

I was made aware today that our nurses tend to pull out fluids from our ADCs on override to administer IV antibiotics that are of smaller volumes, such as 50ml or 100ml, but never have an order. This makes me concerned about errors, including possible incompatibilities and inaccurate documentation. I am wondering:

1. Is the use of a carrier fluid to administer small volume antibiotics pretty standard? (I am not a nurse obviously so just curious) They say this is to finish off the remaining drug in the line which could be up to 20 ml and that makes sense to me.

2. Do any other hospitals have nurse-driven protocols to allow for these to be pulled?

3. Do any institutions order fluids with a TKO rate with each of these automatically anywhere?

4. Any other solutions?

TIA!

Sarah Durham

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