Does your institution follow the 2014 ASPEN Parenteral Nutrition Safety Consensus Recommendations and have the hang time for IV fat emulsions be 12 hours? If you prolong the infusion over 24 hours, do you use a new container and tubing every 12 hours (per ASPEN recs), or do you allow 1 bag to infuse continuously with the same administration set for the 24 hours?

Thanks

Lara Ellinger, PharmD, BCPS
Medication Safety and Drug Information Pharmacist
Northwestern Memorial Hospital
(312) 926-3571

For those institutions following the requirement to filter fat emulsion infusions with a 1.2 micron filter, have your nurses reported issues with the filters, especially after pausing the infusion to administer intermittent medications? Our nurses are getting downstream occlusion alarms on the pumps once the fat emulsion is started again. If you've experienced this, any suggestions on how to prevent this?

Thanks!

As you know, FDA-approved labeling for fat emulsion was modified last year to include a requirement for filtering infusions with a 1.2 micron filter. I'm not sure whether lipid rescue was considered though. Has anyone given that some thought or actually considered and decided one way or another? When fat emulsion is needed in an emergency such as accidental intravenously administered bupivacaine, would you require a filter as per the label?

Thanks,

Mike Cohen