I would like to find out what other institutions are doing regarding the patient weight for inpatients. We have historically based all weight-based doses off of the first clinical weight of a patient stay for inpatients. In areas were this rapidly changed (such as NICU) OR if weight was in error, the pharmacist manually updated the weight. However, this was a carry-over from before electronic EMRs, and does not apply to outpatients or recurring series (such as is seen in Oncology).

We have done this for so long that we are hesitant to change it as we do not know the consequences of having the dosing-weight update with each new weight put in. What are others seeing? How does your institution handle patient weights?