CASE STUDY
www.leiters.com
TIME SAVED GETS MEDICATION TO PATIENTS SOONER
“For us, the crux of the study was to see if we could reduce the time it took to hang a
bag on the patient,” says Browning. “Obviously, with the concentrated vials, there's no
compounding time since they're ready to use, but we found that even when we spiked
them under a hood, the relative prep time was something like 10 seconds compared to
two or three minutes or more for compounding.” That's because the concentrated vials
require a simple aseptic technique where the top is popped, swabbed, and spiked.
“The process saved a lot of time, which got medication to patients faster and freed up
our I.V. room to handle other urgent tasks.”
The nurses also liked the concentrated vials because they helped eliminate delays in
care for their patients. “Requesting a bag, waiting for it to get made, and then eventually
sent up all takes time,” says Browning. Based on Phase 1 data, that was an average of
264 minutes from request to administration for the 16 mg bags.
“With the concentrated vials, when nurses needed a bag — they could just go to the ADM,
pull out what they needed, dock it with vial docking technology and activate and hang it,”
Browning explains. In Phase 3 of the workflow study, Mobile Infirmary found that Norepi
infusion began significantly faster, in 59.2 minutes on average for 16 mg bags.
The result? 100% of nurses answering an internal survey said having the concentrated
vials in an ADM made it either a great deal or a lot faster to administer the first dose
compared to waiting for the I.V. room to compound the product.
Over 80% of nursing respondents stated that they would ‘very likely or likely’ support
the pharmacy’s continued use of the Norepi concentrated vial, as well as support other
critically needed drugs in the same format. According to Browning, the concentrated
vial was also supported by the I.V. room staff. Leiters provides compounded sterile
preparations in several different volumes and precise milligrams — Norepi comes in
4 mg, 8 mg, and 16 mg single-use vials. “With our previous product, the vials only came in
In your unit having the concentrated
vials in your automated dispensing
machine (ADM), was it quicker to
administer the first dose rather
than waiting on the pharmacy?
72.73%
27.27%
A Great Deal
A Lot
A Moderate
Amount
A Little
None at All
How likely would you support
the pharmacy to continue
to use the norepinephrine
bitartrate in this format?
63.64%
18.18%
18.18%
Very Likely
Likely
Neither Likely,
Nor Unlikely
Unlikely
Very Unlikely
How likely would you
request pharmacy to add
additional critically needed
drugs in this vial format?
63.64%
9.09%
18.18%
9.09%
Very Likely
Likely
Neither Likely,
Nor Unlikely
Unlikely
Very Unlikely
KEY NURSING SURVEY RESULTS
“
The process
saved a lot of
time, which got
medication to
patients faster
and freed up
our I.V. room
to handle other
urgent tasks.”
Nathan Browning, Pharm.D.
I.V. Room Supervisor
~ Mobile Infirmary