Though heliox does not usually fall under pharamcy we had a cocnern that is similar to look-alike sound alike medications and I was curious if anyone has any information on what their institution does. We have heliox in two mixtures 80/20 and 70/30. The 70/30 is used when patients receive heliox via facemask and the 80/20 mixture is used via the ventilator so oxygen can be further blended in and an oxygen analyzer used.

The danger is if 80/20 is accidentally given to a patient via facemask because this is a hypoxic mixture.

Hello,

What policies/procedures have other institutions put in place to address the issue of "how early is too early" to give a prn medication? For example, if the medication is oxycodone 5 mg every 4 hours PRN moderate pain, is it acceptable to give the next dose 3.5 hours, 3 hours, or 2 hours, etc after the last dose?

1) Do you have a policy in place addressing PRN intervals or early PRN administration?

2) Do you ask providers to specify a maximum daily dose (similar to outpatient prescriptions in some states)? Is the EMR able to track this and fire a warning?

Can you please share what dosage units (what concentrations) you make available for hydromorphone IV use?

This is assuming you use an external source for hydrormorphone injectable in concentrations less than 1mg/mL.

If you do not use an external vendor, that would be informational too.

thank you!

Susan

Hello all,

I was wondering if you could share with me which Naloxone concentration/product is in stock in your pharmacy? The vials/carpuject (0.4mg/ml) or the 2mg/mL mini ject(pre-filled).

Thank you in advance.

Cris

How are partial patches ordered in your institution? This practice of ordering partial patches is particularly common if you work at a pediatric institution or have a large pediatric population? Are these orders in order sets in addition to allowing providers to place individual orders? Are the partial orders ordered as the total dose to be administred per 24 hrs or as a fraction of a patch ( 0.25 patch) ?

Thanks.

DiAnthia

Does anyone have a pharmacy peer review committee?

If so,

1. How is it structured?
2. Who is on the committee?
3. How often do you meet?

Thanks,

Tabitha Carney, PharmD, MBA, MSHA

Clinical Pharmacy Specialist Pediatrics/Neonatology

Emory University Hospital Midtown

For organizations that care for pediatric patients, can you answer the following questions as it relates to smart pump libraries?

1. Are you a free standing children's hospital or pediatric unit within an adult hospital?

2. Do you utilize dose error reduction software (ie Guardrails, Pharmguard)  in your pediatric patients?

• If yes, how frequently do you assess and update the library?
• If no, what are the barriers to using the software?

Thanks

Sean

Sean P. O'Neill, PharmD

Medication Safety Officer

We recently switched back to using mannitol bags in the ED as opposed to the vials.  One issue that has come up is that with the mannitol bags looking very similar to regular IV fluids, we have had some nurses continue the infusions after completed through the pump (example – bags are 100 g total, a patient receiving 80 g would have some remaining in the bag at the end of the infusion that is then continued by the RN as they mistook it for IVF).  We are working on continuous education with the nursing staff but were trying to brainstorm some other ideas to make it stand out a little better

Does anyone have a policy they would be willing to share concerning preparation, handling, and administration of hazardous medications such as finasteride, valproic acid, gancyclovir, etc.?

Hi all

I am currently in the process of writing up a thesis to answer the following research question:   to study the work of medication safety pharmacists in order to evaluate whether the potential economic benefits to hospitals would outweigh the costs of creating such a role.