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The Economics of Prefilled Syringes - August 2017 - Subscribe to Outpatient Surgery Magazine

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Do the built-in safe- ty, waste reduction and time savings jus- tify the higher costs you'll pay for pre- filled syringes? Let's use neostigmine as an example. Our contract price with the manufacturer for a 10-mL vial of the neuromuscular block reversal drug is $55. That's $5.50 per mL. We pay $30 for a 3-mL prefilled vial of neostigmine from our compounding lab. That's $10 per mL. Why would we pay nearly twice as much per mL to outsource that item? Glad you asked. When you do the math, you'll discover that we're actually saving money by using ready-to-use syringe medications. The equation is simple: spend more, but waste less. We waste not a drop of neostig- mine when we administer a 3-mL, $30 syringe. We waste 7 mL when we administer a 10-mL, $55 syringe. Something's wrong when the drain gets more medication than the patient. You'll ease your sticker shock when you take cost per mL, waste and staff time into account. A longer shelf life is another advantage of prefilled syringes. We order the paralytic succinylcholine in 5-mL prefilled syringes, the appropriate dose for adults. Succinylcholine from the manufacturer comes in 10-mL or 20-mL vials that you must refrigerate. Once you take succinylcholine out of the refrigerator and place it in the auto- mated dispensing machine, the drug will lose its stability before the 4 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 • A U G U S T 2 0 1 7 • READY TO USE Do the additional medication safety, waste reduction and time-sav- ings justify the greater up-front cost for your facility? Pamela Bevelhymer, RN, BSN, CNOR

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