Spangler, Julie Renae
(2023)
The impact of intravenous push lacosamide on efficiency in provision of patient care.
Master Essay, University of Pittsburgh.
Abstract
The health care industry has long been focused on providing both efficient and safe patient care. However, since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, a heavier burden has been placed on health care workers due to staffing shortages. Many facilities are at maximum patient capacity based on reduced nursing staff availability, and inpatient pharmacies have been significantly impacted by staffing strains as well. From these challenges, it has become clear that developing and implementing efficiency boosting processes is critical to ensuring that the health care industry can continue to provide safe and timely patient care.
Epilepsy, which can result in seizures among other symptoms, affects numerous individuals in the United States. Lacosamide is an antiepileptic to be administered intravenously over 30 to 60 minutes. Once diluted with an appropriate intravenous (IV) fluid to create an IV piggyback (IVPB), lacosamide has an extremely short beyond-use-date. Additionally, lacosamide is a schedule V controlled substance, requiring the incorporation of numerous steps to track the medication through the compounding and dispensing process. The combination of these two factors makes it logistically challenging to stock lacosamide on the patient care unit for easy access and administration by nursing staff. Previous data have demonstrated that administering lacosamide as an IV push (IVP) rather than an IVPB can reduce time from order verification to administration with a similar safety profile. Switching to IVP administration greatly reduces the number of steps required in the dispensing process and may have a significant impact on the workflows of both pharmacy and nursing staff. The Allegheny Health Network implemented a policy change to administer lacosamide via IVP instead of IVPB. The purpose of this study was to describe the steps required to implement this policy and to elucidate the effect of this change on both efficiency and safety.
This project is relevant to public health as it highlights the impact that process changes can have on the provision of safe and timely patient care and on maintaining efficient workflows during critical staffing shortages.
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Details
| Item Type: |
Other Thesis, Dissertation, or Long Paper
(Master Essay)
|
| Status: |
Unpublished |
| Creators/Authors: |
|
| Contributors: |
| Contribution | Contributors Name | Email | Pitt Username | ORCID  |
|---|
| Committee Chair | Finegold, David N | dnf@pitt.edu | dnf | UNSPECIFIED | | Committee Co-Chair | Donohue, Julie M | jdonohue@pitt.edu | jdonohue | UNSPECIFIED | | Committee Co-Chair | Sokol, Jamie A | jsokol@pitt.edu | jsokol | UNSPECIFIED |
|
| Date: |
3 January 2023 |
| Date Type: |
Completion |
| Number of Pages: |
32 |
| Institution: |
University of Pittsburgh |
| Schools and Programs: |
School of Public Health > Multidisciplinary MPH |
| Thesis Type: |
Master Essay |
| Refereed: |
Yes |
| Uncontrolled Keywords: |
pharmacy, operations |
| Date Deposited: |
03 Jan 2023 18:47 |
| Last Modified: |
03 Jan 2023 18:47 |
| URI: |
http://d-scholarship.pitt.edu/id/eprint/43731 |
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