1 4 • O U T PA T I E N T S U R G E R Y M A G A Z I N E • J U N E 2 0 1 7
I
f you stock an emergency
drug with a narrow thera-
peutic range, like
dopamine, in your code cart,
it's critical to precisely control
the infusion rate so you can
titrate the dosage to the
desired response. For this rea-
son, you want to administer
dopamine through a volumet-
ric infusion pump — not
through ordinary IV apparatus
regulated only by gravity and
mechanical clamps. To remind
staff who might be scrambling
in an emergency, we taped a
reminder to the forward-fac-
ing dopamine package that's
visible in our code cart. In a
crisis situation, it's best to
have layers of redundancy.
We've never had to use
dopamine, and I hope we never do. But should the time ever come,
this simple sign will help ensure that we infuse it properly.
Paul Schaefer, MD
Middlesex Center for
Advanced Orthopedic Surgery
Middletown, Conn.
p.schaefer@mcaos.com
A Dopamine Code Cart Reminder
• INFUSION PUMP A simple sign reminds staff not to administer
dopamine through ordinary IV apparatus.
Sheldon
S.
Sones,
RPh,
FASCP
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