September 28, 2023
There’s a significant problem in many operating rooms across the United States: Electrosurgical devices can cause significant patient burns and life-threatening fires...
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By: Outpatient Surgery Editors
Published: 8/4/2022
The practice of requiring healthcare workers to search for medications by typing in at least the first five letters of the intended drug into automated dispensing cabinets (ADCs) would go a long way toward preventing potentially dangerous errors, says the Institute for Safe Medication Practices (ISMP). “We have seen repeatedly that problems can occur with drug-name searches when fewer than five letter characters are typed to select specific agents,” says ISMP President Emeritus Michael Cohen, RPh, MS, ScD (hon.), DPS (hon.). “Very few drug name pairs start with the same five letters.” The simplest fix, according to Dr. Cohen, is to employ the minimum five-letter search on ADCs. The default setting for this feature is off on cabinets from one major manufacturer, so staff will need to turn it on. The other primary ADC manufacturer is working on a software update that will add the feature later this year. OSM
There’s a significant problem in many operating rooms across the United States: Electrosurgical devices can cause significant patient burns and life-threatening fires...
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