IV bag shortage has hospitals scrambling in midst of nasty flu season

In this Monday, Jan. 8, 2018, photo, certified pharmacy technician Peggy Gillespie compounds antibiotics to fill into syringes for use as an I.V. push at ProMedica Toledo Hospital in Toledo, Ohio.
In this Monday, Jan. 8, 2018, photo, certified pharmacy technician Peggy Gillespie compounds antibiotics to fill into syringes for use as an I.V. push at ProMedica Toledo Hospital in Toledo, Ohio.

TRENTON, N.J. - An ongoing shortage of fluids used to deliver medicine and treat dehydrated patients has hospital workers scrambling in the midst of a nasty flu season and supplies from factories in storm-ravaged Puerto Rico have been slow to rebound.

Supplies of saline and nutrient solutions were already tight before hurricanes pounded Puerto Rico and cut power to manufacturing plants that make much of the U.S. supply of fluid-filled bags used to deliver sterile solutions to patients.

Flu season has turned out to be a bad one, and it came early, bringing patients in need of fluids into hospitals already running low.

Hospital officials, pharmacists and other staff have been devising alternatives and workarounds, training doctors and nurses on new procedures and options, and hitting the phones to try to secure fluids from secondary suppliers.

"If we can't support patients coming in emergency rooms who have the flu, more people are going to die," predicts Deborah Pasko, director of medication safety and quality at the American Society of Health System Pharmacists, a professional group. "I see it as a crisis."

Chattanooga-area hospitals also are working to meet demand in the face of uncertain supply.

photo In this Monday, Jan. 8, 2018, photo, a nurse administers an I.V. push of antibiotics to Alice McDonald at ProMedica Toledo Hospital in Toledo, Ohio. A nasty flu season is hitting U.S. hospitals already scrambling to maintain patient care amid severe shortages of crucial sterile fluids, particularly saline solution needed to administer I.V. medicines and rehydrate patients. (AP Photo/Tony Dejak)
photo In this Monday, Jan. 8, 2018, photo, nurse Ashley Good, left, administers an I.V. push of antibiotics to patient Alice McDonald at ProMedica Toledo Hospital in Toledo, Ohio. Good said it takes her about five minutes to administer the medication. A nasty flu season is hitting U.S. hospitals already scrambling to maintain patient care amid severe shortages of crucial sterile fluids, particularly saline solution needed to administer I.V. medicines and rehydrate patients. (AP Photo/Tony Dejak)

"The No. 1 goal is to conserve whenever possible, while also providing the safest care to our patients," said Allen Broome, director of pharmacy at Erlanger Health System. "We speak with practitioners, find ways to conserve fluids, and decide what the best alternatives are before there is any significant change in our supplies."

Rhonda Poulson, senior vice president and chief nursing officer at CHI Memorial, said patient care hasn't been affected by the national shortage, but noted "it is something we are watching closely."

Parkridge Health System has experienced some shortages of certain fluids, spokeswoman Jamie Lawson said, but the hospital is leveraging its place in a large national family of hospitals to reallocate supplies if needed.

"We are well-positioned to manage through the shortage and provide the necessary care for our patients," Lawson said.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said last week it believes shortages will start to ease over the next few weeks, but stressed "the production situation in Puerto Rico remains fragile."

Puerto Rico's power grid is being slowly restored and the last of three Baxter International factories there that make saline bags and nutrient solutions was reconnected just before Christmas. But intermittent power outages are still slowing Baxter's efforts to get back to full production.

Only a few other companies make those solutions, and supplies never fully recovered after a 2014 shortage of saline bags.

Now many hospitals are only getting half or two-thirds of what they order, and have only a few days' worth of saline on their shelves.

"No one wants to come out and make it sound like their hospital isn't safe," but problems will worsen if shortages don't ease soon, Pasko said.

Pasko and other hospital officials said they worry that changes in procedures and products could lead to errors.

Some hospital officials say the severity of shortages stabilized over the holidays, when elective surgeries and other services drop, but others say shortages are worsening.

Several noted a cascade effect, with new shortages created as hospitals all try the same workarounds. For instance, syringe supplies are running low because many patients are now getting injections instead of IV drips.

"Everything is hard to get because people are getting whatever they can," said Deborah Sadowski, director of pharmacy services at Deborah Heart and Lung Center, a specialized hospital in southern New Jersey.

The worst shortage is for small saline bags. Hospitals use hundreds or thousands daily to hydrate patients and to dilute antibiotics, painkillers and other drugs, then hang bags from a pole so the mix slowly drips through a tube and into a vein.

Deliveries of those have been most unpredictable, said David Chen, a pharmacy director with Promedica, which operates 13 hospitals in Ohio and Michigan.

"Some facilities are getting virtually zero. Others are having them trickle in. You never know what you're going to get," Chen said.

The FDA has been trying to boost supplies, giving two additional companies approval to start selling saline bags, likely within a couple of months. It also gave Baxter permission to temporarily import sterile fluids from six overseas factories.

Baxter said it's been shipping those to U.S. hospitals since October, but hospital officials said that hasn't been enough.

Erin Fox, who tracks nationwide drug shortages and heads the University of Utah health system's drug information and support services, said its hospital system now has five to eight pharmacists a day working on nothing but managing shortages.

Shortages are also hitting surgery centers, cancer clinics that infuse chemotherapy, dialysis centers and companies that provide regular infusions to home-bound patients.

An Atlanta-area hospital run by Cancer Treatment Centers of America has had to rent special pumps to empty liter-size saline bags into many smaller ones for individual patients, said pharmacy services director Jamie Joy.

Nutrient solution bags, also running low, are needed for far fewer patients than saline, but there are few substitutes, said Connie Sullivan, head of research and innovation at the National Home Infusion Association.

Its members have been swapping products with other infusion services and even limiting the number of new patients they accept.

"I have never seen anything quite this bad," Sullivan said.

Hospitals have been substituting pills for IV-administered drugs when possible, changing dosing schedules or injecting drugs directly into a vein, what's called IV push.

They've also been changing some procedures, such as trying to switch people off IV bags as soon as possible and not starting patients on IV drips during surgery until it's certain they are needed.

On the positive side: Hospitals may find ways to permanently reduce use of saline bags. Ohio Health System will evaluate its new practices to see which are cost effective and should be kept, said pharmacy services head Curt Passafume Jr.

"We should learn something about patient care from this," he said.

Staff writer Elizabeth Fite contributed to this story.

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