Hiding in Plain Sight: Quantifying Salbutamol and Ipratropium Inhaler Wastage in Hospitals

Previous studies have found significant inhaler wastage in the inpatient setting, which contributes to unnecessary health care expenditures. Wastage may involve inhalers available in automated dispensing cabinets (ADCs).

To evaluate whether salbutamol and ipratropium inhalers were unnecessarily withdrawn from ADCs for hospital inpatients.

This cross-sectional study included patients from 16 health care facilities in British Columbia. ADC reports were run for the period August 2021 to January 2022 to identify salbutamol and ipratropium inhalers removed from ADCs.

Over the study period, 8.3% (2180/26 324) of salbutamol and ipratropium inhalers were withdrawn from ADCs unnecessarily for the same patient encounter within a 2-day timeframe, and another 1118 (4.2%) represented instances when multiple inhalers were withdrawn for the same patient at the same time. Overall, 12.5% (3298/26 324) of all salbutamol and ipratropium inhalers were withdrawn unnecessarily. The total cost of these inhalers was about $31 600 over the 6-month period.

This evaluation revealed considerable wastage of inhalers, leading to wasted expenditures. Other health authorities should conduct similar analyses to determine whether similar problems exist in their settings.