We implemented bedside barcode scanning of medications prior to administration about a year ago. Do you have a policy or procedure for the scanning when a nurse obtains the medication for a physician and then administers it at the bedside? Is it a written policy or just "understood"?

Thanks in advance for your response.

Donna Fine

Hello everyone,

We are close to depleting our supply of phentolamine. What alternatives are you providing for your medical staff?

Are you having the phentolamine compounded?

For those using nitroglycerin ointment - have you seen good case reports with use?

What concentration(s) of methadone oral solution do you carry in your inventory?

We currently have both 1mg/mL and 10mg/mL and had a near miss.

thanks

Susan

We recently converted to Pyxis ES cabinets and use them as our primary drug distribution process. We have both cubies and open matrix drawers. When a new medication is restocked there is a safety concern not to place similar meds next to each other. When the techs are busy it is easy to simply restock the med in the next available open pocket that Pyxis displays. Can you share your ideas on how to reduce errors. Thanks. Tom
 

Recently I have come across several defective Calcium Chloride 10% prefilled syringes with  possible manufacturer errors. These syringes were manufacturered by Agila Pharmaceuticals and distributed by Amneal Pharmaceuticals.

Do you have policies or procedures in place (for pharmacy, physicians, or the system) to discontinue inactive drips on a patient’s profile?

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