Minimizing i.v. admixture waste in a 70-bed hospital

Area of Science:

• Pharmacy Practice
• Healthcare Management
• Medication Safety

Background:

• Excessive waste of intravenous (IV) medication doses presents a significant financial challenge for hospital pharmacy departments.
• Current processes for managing IV medication orders are inefficient, leading to unnecessary wastage.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and evaluate a two-phase plan to reduce the waste of IV medication doses.
• To quantify the cost savings associated with improved medication order management and recycling.

Main Methods:

• Phase 1: Assessed the cost of manual review of nursing Medication Administration Records (MARs) for IV order changes by technicians versus reliance on ward clerks.
• Phase 1: Compared the cost of manual review to savings from preventing the preparation and waste of discontinued IV medications.
• Phase 2: Determined cost savings from recycling unused IV medications for different patients.

Main Results:

• The implemented changes yielded an estimated annual cost saving of $8,044.00.
• Optimizing the process of identifying IV order changes reduced waste.
• Recycling of IV medications further contributed to cost reduction.

Conclusions:

• A proactive, two-phase approach significantly reduces IV medication waste and associated costs.
• Streamlining medication order verification and implementing medication recycling are effective cost-saving strategies for hospital pharmacies.
• These interventions enhance both financial efficiency and potentially medication availability.