We are fairly liberal with maintaining patients on the medications they are receiving before they enter the hospital to decrease any chance of adverse effects of switching medications for a short hospital stay. If your hospital has this strict control over non-formulary use then answers of C through E may be appropriate for this question. All chemotherapeutic agents prescribed for patients, regardless of the route of administration, or indication should not be communicated via verbal or telephone orders. You may refer to Chapter 13 of Facts and Comparisons for a listing of chemotherapeutic agents. Yes, all medications should be listed and documented on the MAR for full implementation and scores of D or E. 80.
Unit dose is defined as dispensing the patient specific drug as a unit dose.
This means if the expiration date is available from the manufacturer, or if the pharmacy has repackaged the product does the product contain an expiration date according to an established internal policy. These calculations should not be used for internal or external comparison. These questions relate to the atmosphere that everyone in your organization including the Board of Trustees shares patient safety and a non-punitive system based approach to medication error prevention. Organizations with open error reporting policies which are non-punitive and which use the results of error analysis to institute system changes that may involve capital investment are in our experience ahead of the curve in safe medication use practices. Answers to these questions must be honestly agreed upon between the senior administrator on your task force as well as all other members.