Ideas That Work: Medications on Backorder? Try Borrowing

Practical pearls from your colleagues

As drug shortages continue to impact healthcare facilities across the country, global accreditation organization QUAD A offers helpful suggestions about what to do if some of your medications are on backorder as you continue to operate.

If your facility is affiliated with a hospital, QUAD A recommends borrowing medications from it until your order arrives. If your facility is substituting a drug with an equivalent, take every step to ensure the safe delivery and administration of that medication.

These safety steps not only include staff education, but also use of brightly colored labeling, two-step verification processes and second-nurse witness signatures. Processes for inventory counts and ordering should be an ongoing practice.

QUAD A recommends checking the FDA website to learn if medications you use are on its extended-use list. If so, you can date expired medication vials with extended expiration dates based on FDA’s guidelines.

Document your efforts to have needed drugs onsite to show surveyors when they arrive. This documentation should include copies of invoices, agreements with other facilities to obtain medications and communications with vendors.

As the drug shortage problem continues to affect many healthcare facilities across the country, the global accreditation organization QUAD A has helpful suggestions on its website about what to do if some of your medications are on backorder as you continue to operate. OSM