Question: When an intended inpatient intravenous medication formulation is not found on the Connect Care facility list, is there a way to order its preparation for administration during hospital care?
Context: Commonly requested inpatient intravenous medications will be on the AHS provincial formulary, usually with pre-mixed bags available from a facility pharmacy. These are easy to find by entering the medication name in order search. Frequently used standardized preparations will appear on the specialty preference list (default search result tab). Less frequent options can be found by checking the "Facility List". It is always best to select from available options. These reflect recognized medication concentrations and mixes.
Sometimes, a desired intravenous medication cannot be found on personal, preference or facility lists. Or, a particular pre-mix may not be available at the local facility and specific formulation instructions are required as part of the medication order.
Answer: If an inpatient intravenous medication cannot be found on inpatient facility order lists (be sure to try different spellings and the generic drug name) and the medication is available within AHS, then a custom order can be entered. A pharmacist will check to see if the request can be fulfilled... success may be more likely by consulting with a facility pharmacist before proceeding.
Enter "Non Standard" or "Help", instead of a medication name, in the order search box. Select "Non Standard Medication". When using the order composer, indicate the dose and units to be given per hour, note the route to be "intravenous", and enter "continuous" as the frequency. The drug name must be provided together with a reason why a non-standard formulation is required. It can help to use the "Add Note to Pharmacy" field to provide more details.
Once all details are entered, and the pharmacy has proved able to honour the request, the specific non-standard medication order can be saved as a favourite (be sure to copy in the drug identification details and suitably name the favourite before saving). This will allow the medication to be ordered in the future without having to enter all the data required of a de-novo non-standard order.