I am looking for information on what other hospitals are doing to tackle hold orders. Does your EMR allow providers to hold(suspend) doses for certain dates/times(i.e. am dose prior to surgery or procedure)? We have Cerner at our health system and have struggled for a long time with the multitude of ways providers are entering a hold order on a medication. In most cases we are relying on communication orders for those holds which has led to medication events and delays in care. The number of communication orders for a nurse to handle has become cumbersome.

Hello,
We have a mix of badge readers and keypads that secure our medication storage areas. For those of you that still use keypads, what is your process for updating the codes?

More specifically:
-How often do you change the codes?
-Is the code itself the same across the organization or customized per area?
-WHO changes the codes?

Thank you!
Stacie Ethington MSN, RN
Medication Safety Nurse Specialist

We recently went live with Baxter pump interoperability. We use the Rover as our BCMA device and Epic as our CPOE system. We are receiving many errors in which the nurse has scanned the pump, patient and medication. The Epic order information is sent to the pump via the Rover and the pump receives the information, because the nurse can see it on the pump, however, the transaction is not completed on the Rover. The confirmation message that should be sent from the pump to Rover doesn't complete.

We just changed over to a new Baxter syringe smart pump.
The Aerogen syringes, non-FDA approved use for respiratory medications are not recognized in the pump- which I believe it true for all pumps.
The Novum Baxter pump gives an alert that warns the nurse that this could be dangerous to use a non-approved syringe (the language is hard coded and pretty harsh).
How are you handling respiratory medications given with the use of a syringe library ?
Any help would be appreciated !

Hi all,

It's been awhile since someone asked this, and we're updating our policy. Would anyone be willing to share their Critical Med timing policy?

Thanks!
Jennifer

How are facilities addressing the ISMP recommendations for REMS? It was mentioned twice in the recent Action Agenda. In our hospital we are mostly continuing what has already been prescribed somewhere else for these specific meds... so they are not being prescribed brand new. Would the REMS still apply? The opioid one is the only one that we would be starting patients new on... but, I don't see where anything is "required" there. Would love some clarification on this if anyone knows. Thank you so much!

We are working to update our restraint policies to clearly define the role for medication restraints and the appropriate documentation and patient monitoring required. Hoping others could share their policies and provide some feedback on what EHR-based strategies (e.g., order panels, "quick lists", etc.) do you employ to ensure that medication orders are clearly ordered as a restraint an require documentation.

Hi everyone,

Our facility is getting reports of faulty Insulin Glargine-YFGN Pens. Is this something anyone else has seen or gotten a response from reporting?

Good morning,
We are in the process of revamping our list of clinical advisories for our smart pump library (Alaris) and I was wondering if anyone has a list for their facility that they are willing to share? Our previous list was very long and redundant so we are trying to minimize alerts and focus on the important reminders needed at the point of IV administration.
Thank you,
Jordan Anderson
Driscoll Children's Hospital