Pharmacy Purchasing & Products Magazine

Ready-to-Use IVs

April 2020 : State of Pharmacy Compounding - Vol.17 No. 4 - Page #42

Category: IV Sets/Solutions

Pharmacy has never faced a stronger imperative to switch to purchasing RTU IVs wherever possible than it does at this moment in time. Not only do your patients benefit from the safety that RTU IVs deliver via cGMP production, but even more importantly, every effort to reduce staff in the cleanroom frees up PPE for the frontline staff. At PP&P, we strongly recommend that facilities make every effort to adopt point-of-care devices and utilize RTU IVs as broadly as possible.

Rarely do facilities opt for a single system for drug delivery. Rather, almost 8 out every 10 facilities use a combination of syringe and piggyback delivery for IV medications.

Point-of-care devices are widely used. On average, 61% of all facilities take advantage of the efficiencies offered in this technology, with the largest facilities making the strongest commitment to point-of-care devices.

A wide array of point-of-care devices are available on the marketplace and most health systems use multiple vendors. Baxter, B. Braun, and ICU are the leading vendors in this category.

With 99% user satisfaction ratings, there is no reason not to expand usage of RTU IVs.

In the recent past, RTU IVs were typically incorporated into pharmacy inventory on a supplemental basis, with most facilities utilizing these products for less than one-quarter of their IV needs. It is our expectation that this utilization will grow significantly over the course of this year in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Baxter, B. Braun, Pfizer, and Fresenius Kabi remain the leading vendors in the RTU IV marketplace.

While RTU products are most commonly assembled in a PEC within the cleanroom, a significant number of facilities (37%) continue to rely on nursing staff to assemble RTU IVs on the unit.

Even before the COVID-19 pandemic upended long-term planning, pharmacy had made a strong commitment to increasing RTU IV purchasing levels. Half of all facilities planned to increase their RTU purchasing, and 45% expected to maintain their current purchasing volumes.