A subcommittee of the Medication Safety Officers Society (MSOS) Guidelines Committee worked with ISMP staff to revise the ISMP Guidelines for Safe Preparation of Sterile Compounds that was originally published in 2013. We ask that MSOS members to please provide comments on the proposed revisions by April 10, 2016. To view the document and submit comments, please go to: www.ismp.org/tools/guidelines/spsc.

Errors during sterile compounding continue to be reported to the ISMP National Medication Errors Reporting Program (ISMP MERP). It has become clear that nearly all of these intravenous (IV) admixture-related errors (wrong drug or solution, wrong amount, wrong patient, etc.) could be prevented with implementation of technological solutions (e.g., barcode scanning verification of ingredients, gravimetric verification of drug and diluent volumes, and/or robotic image recognition). Every hospitalized patient deserves the highest level of safety we can provide. Therefore, among the many changes in the revised document is strengthening the call for the use of technology—from recommending its use “as much as possible” in the 2013 guidelines, to this: “… systems that include barcode scanning verification of ingredients, gravimetric verification of drug and diluent volumes, and/or robotic image recognition, are utilized to augment manual processes for preparing and verifying compounded sterile products (CSPs).” The revised document also notes that “barcode scanning is linked to the patient-specific order to identify products used for that patient in the preparation of CSPs.”

ISMP looks forward to your comments.