Abstract
AbstractIn hospitals, the majority of medication therapy is administered intravenously. Especially, in intensive care units, simultaneous of various injectable drugs is a common practice Drug incompatibilities have been reported to be associated with up to 60 % of all serious and life-threatening adverse drug events. Several databases are used by hospital pharmacists to answer the questions of (in)compatibility of co-administered injectable drugs. The objective of this article is to present the European databases on compatibility and stability of injectable drugs. According to a questionnaire which was sent to the National Hospital Pharmacy Associations of the 28 countries of European Community there are three national databases available in EU countries which are in alphabetical order, Belgium, France and Germany. The Belgian database is dedicated to injectable medications, is updated and distributed annually in French language on a USB key. STABILIS® is an international database giving information with pictograms translated into 29 languages. This database contains also monographs of non-injectable drugs. The internet-based ADKA STABIL-Datenbank is focused on anticancer drug therapy, listing detailed datasets in German language on stability and compatibility including the references.
Highlights
In hospitals, the majority of medication therapy is administered intravenously
Several databases are used by hospital pharmacists to answer the questions ofcompatibility of co-administered injectable drugs
The objective of this article is to present the European databases on compatibility and stability of injectable drugs
Summary
The majority of medication therapy is administered intravenously. About 30 to 50 % of inpatients are treated by intravenously administered medications [1]. Fekadu et al reported that 50 %, 32 % and 13 % of patients are prescribed two, three or four injectable drugs, respectively, to be administered at the same time [2]. In intensive care units, simultaneous infusion of various injectable drugs is a common practice when patients require multiple products to be administered at the same time and have limited i.v. access. This leads to the question of drug-drug and drug-infusion compatibility. Drug incompatibilities are associated with up to 60 % of all serious and life-threatening adverse drug events [4]
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