When to remove overwrap from pre-made IV products

PLEASE NOTE:   Posts made to this forum should not be considered as the expressed opinions of, nor should be considered endorsed by, the Medication Safety Officer’s Society (MSOS) or the Institute for Safe Medication Practices (ISMP). 

Make sure your email is up-to-date
In order to continue to receive updates from MSOS, as well as forum posts and other valuable information as a member of MSOS, please be sure to update your email address with us, whenever it changes. If you need assistance doing so, please send an email to jrufo@ismp.org

5 posts / 0 new
Last post
Colleen Cosgrove
Colleen Cosgrove's picture
Offline
Last seen: 5 years 9 months ago
Joined: 02/09/2017 - 09:56
When to remove overwrap from pre-made IV products

Regarding pre-made IV products that have overwraps stating that product should be kept in overwrap until time of use – how do you dispense these products?
We have always removed the products from the overwrap in the pharmacy, assigned a new beyond use date based on when overwrap was removed, and then dispensed with patient-specific label. It was brought to our attention that other hospitals dispense these products to nursing units with the patient specific label on the overwrap, and the nurse is expected to peel the label off, remove the product from the overwrap, and place the label on the product at the time of administration. Does anyone have any comments as to risk of medication errors versus decreased stability of products?