Patient Safety Alert
Resultant Harm to the Patient
A patient required readmission to the PICU for head imaging and observation.
Actions to Mitigate Risk at Your Hospital
- Create and use Enoxaparin prophylaxis and treatment order sets
- Implement prescriber education and communication
- Implement an alerting system (Pharmacy, Case Management, Quality, IT) that includes:
- Dose range checking
- Review capability for all injectable medications
- Evaluation of missing concentrations
- Use a standardized concentration for Enoxaparin on all doses 100 mg or less
- Implement the use of whole numbers and rounding guidelines when ordering
- Standardize the type of prefilled syringes if possible
- Consider standardization for Enoxaparin doses under 40 mg with certain designated syringe (except for 30 mg dosages)
- Engage Case Management and Home Health stakeholders in the review of orders prior to dispensing of custom compounded high-risk medications
- Standardize syringes used with non-prefilled doses
- Adopt other best practices for standardization and initiate state-wide collaborative initiatives for adoption
Target Audiences
- Quality
- Patient Safety
- Legal
- Risk Management
- Cause Analysis Staff
- Organizational Leaders
- Pharmacy Leaders
- Home Care
- Case Management
Fundamental Issue
There was a deviation and systems failure leading to 10x dispensing error at home that reached the patient. A prescription was written as: Enoxaparin 0.6 ml (6mg) subcutaneous Q12 hours (inpatient standard concentration was 10mg/ml). It was dispensed as standard adult concentration of Enoxaparin (100mg/ml) to give 0.6ml subcutaneous Q12 hours, which equates to 60mg. This was a high-risk medication requiring a standardized process without similarly complex or standardized ordering, teaching or dispensing systems. There was a lack of communication and collaboration between inpatient and retail pharmacy.