We are looking for some way to highlight the great safety work (medication as well as other HACs like CLABSI/CAUTI/VAP etc) with the entirety of the hospital staff, not just those team members serving on the committees. I would appreciate if anyone can share their ideas as to how you may structure a newsletter, what’s the format or content included, who are contributors, how do you distribute and at what frequency etc. Any inspiration is much appreciated.
Thanks
Jess

Hello everyone,

We are assessing our resource model for med safety, and I am looking to learn more or connect with hospitals that have utilized a model similar to the proposed future state described below. Please share your experience or let me know if you are willing to connect offline. Thank you in advance!

Current state: All med safety resources (3 FTE) in the patient safety department; partnerships with key departments informal or through committee structures (pharmacy, anesthesia, nursing, clinical units)

Are baseline ACTs checked before heparin administration in your cath lab?
If yes, which of the following apply for checking the baseline ACT?
1. Checked on all patients
2. Checked based on recent heparin administration/infusion
3. Checked based on recent PTT or Hep Quant Assay result (e.g. recent supra-therapeutic PTT)
4. Other?

Thank you for your response,
Stacie Ethington MSN, RN-BC
Medication Safety Nurse Specialist
Nebraska Medicine

Hello,
We're just getting to an official rollout/implementation of USP<800> and we're challenged by 2 things. The sheer number of different types of waste containers in our institution and creating a simple education plan around it and the decision on how involved to get with medical surveillance.

Would love it if someone has a policy you're willing to share on this topic.

Thanks!

Currently at UK HealthCare pharmacy utilizes an auxiliary label "1 mL Syringe Have 0.05 mL Overfill" - this could be confusing as it is not all 1 mL syringes but only those for intramuscular or subcutaneous routes.

Do other institutions allot overfill to account for residual medication in the needle?
If so, how does pharmacy denote this in the preparation/dispensing stage to communicate with nursing prior to administration this extra volume was not in error?

In my Hospital we are working on developing a patient safety KPI on Medication Reconciliation compliance on admission. Please share if such a KPI is also monitored in your Hospital, what do you measure? indicator/ denominator? and if any international benchmarks are available in literature. I agree that it must be 100% but still if you are aware of any good practice recommendation for minimum percentage compliance then please share. I will be grateful.

Regards,
Saharish

Does anyone have experience with a Best Practice Advisory (BPA)/warning for Ketorolac use that is >5 days of therapy? What are the conditions for the BPA/warning to fire?

Hello everyone!
For monitoring of heparin drips, does your facility have standardized times for the lab draws or are they timed after the last result was posted?
For example, UFH level taken at 6am, resulted at 7am, RN saw and adjusted at 7:30 am--would you adjust next q6h level to 1:30 pm or leave it at 12pm? Or do you do q8 hours knowing you will have lags with the posting and adjustments?
Thank you!

Hello everyone!
For monitoring of heparin drips, does your facility have standardized times for the lab draws or are they timed after the last result was posted?
For example, UFH level taken at 6am, resulted at 7am, RN saw and adjusted at 7:30 am--would you adjust next q6h level to 1:30 pm or leave it at 12pm? Or do you do q8 hours knowing you will have lags with the posting and adjustments?
Thank you!

Hi everyone!