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ANESTHESIA ALERT
Are You Feeling the Drug Shortage?
A 2012 survey of American Society of Anesthesiologists members found that:
• 98% of respondents had experienced shortages that year
• 96% had been forced to use alternative drugs
• 50% had been forced to change a procedure in some way
• 7% had postponed cases
• 4% had canceled cases
Is it reasonable to order extra medications that are in short supply,
so my ORs have enough?
Q.
A.
Having plenty of a drug that's in short supply might be great for
your facility, but it follows that other facilities will have even
less, which means their patients could be inconvenienced or harmed.
There's a fine line between preparedness and hoarding, but generally,
if you have cases of a medication stored away while your competitor
has little or none, it's unethical. Some might say it's good business, but
this business involves people's health, so that crosses the line.
If my patient suffers because of a drug shortage, what should I do?
Q.
A.
Report it. To deal with the impact of drug shortages, we need to
track bad outcomes and complications that happen when medications are scarce and/or when we're forced to use substitutes.
Otherwise, there may be a misperception that shortages have no
impact on patient safety. Report bad outcomes or complications to
the Anesthesia Quality Institute (aqihq.org/airs/airsintro.aspx), a federally designated patient safety organization. Reports to AQI are anonymous, confidential and not discoverable based on federal law.
