After Hurricane Maria disrupted IV supply manufacturing operations in Puerto Rico, healthcare organizations got innovative in making ends meet, the Philadelphia Inquirer reports.
Here's what you should know:
1. In a recent survey by the American Society of Healthsystem Pharmacists, 85 percent of respondents said they used alternative methods to deliver medicine that required less fluids, 64 percent were buying premixed or frozen drugs that were not on formularies and 60 percent said they restricted the use of IV fluids.
2. While IV fluid supplies are improving, many organizations continue to receive a suboptimal supply.
3. Philadelphia-based Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania Pharmacy Director Rick Demers said of the innovations, "The whole country’s doing the same thing."
4. The shortage has caused hospitals to rethink prescribing practices as well. For example, Camden, Pa.-based Cooper University Hospital orders 1 million bags of IV fluids annually. Through analyzing and evaluating their practices, they were able to decrease saline and dextrose usage by 30 percent, changes which they plan on keeping in effect after the shortage ends.
5. Physicians Against Drug Shortages Chairman and anesthesiologist Robert Campbell, MD, has an anesthesia group that works with several ASCs. His group approached the issue in a different way. He said, "What we do and what a lot of places do is we hoard. We have a hallway stacked to the ceiling with salt water."