How does your institution calculate IBW for patients less than 5 feet tall?
How does your institution calculate IBW for patients with amputations
What formula do you currently use (growth charts, Traub formula, etc.)?

We finally have gotten traction on locking our Meditech weight entry to kg only. The offer from IT is to lock out the pounds and ounces fields from data entry, but still allow a calculation and display on the screen.

I can see the value in having the lbs displayed instead of using conversion charts, but I also see how this can still lead to error. Can anyone share their experience with such a setup?

Thank you in advance!
Erin

Good morning !
We have had a few medication errors around Heparin that involve changing weights of patients.
Do you allow the patient weight changes to automatically change a dose ? Or is there a % change cut off that you use ?

Just looking to make this action plan is around any high alert weight based medication- and not just heparin.
Thoughts ? Experiences?

Any information much appreciated
Laura

I would like to find out what other institutions are doing regarding the patient weight for inpatients. We have historically based all weight-based doses off of the first clinical weight of a patient stay for inpatients. In areas were this rapidly changed (such as NICU) OR if weight was in error, the pharmacist manually updated the weight. However, this was a carry-over from before electronic EMRs, and does not apply to outpatients or recurring series (such as is seen in Oncology).