Drug Safety: Incompatibility of Intravenous Medications

Hospitalized patients often receive multiple intravenous medications to manage their illness. These medications are administered using infusion bag, syringe or at the Y-site where two or more IV lines meet. However, all these medications may not be compatible with each other. They can be physically or chemically incompatible. The particulates formed due to IV incompatibilities can cause several health hazards to the patients. Not all incompatibilities are visually detectable. Only physical incompatibilities are visually detectable. Many chemical incompatibilities are colorless reactions. They can reduce the drug’s bioavailability, cause therapeutic failure or produce toxicity.

The knowledge on incompatibilities of intravenous medications is very essential for providing safe medication therapy to patients.

In this course, there are 4 modules.

Module 1: Introduction: Definition and types of IV incompatibilities with examples

Module 2: Various mechanisms of incompatibilities

Module 3: Examples for different types of IV drug incompatibilities

Module 4: Measures to prevent IV drug incompatibilities

Learning outcome: At the end of the course, participants will be able to

a) Understand the importance of preventing IV drug incompatibilities in hospitalized patients

b) Identify quickly physical incompatibilities, chemical incompatibilities, solution incompatibilities, admixture incompatibilities, Y-site incompatibilities and syringe incompatibilities.

c) Follow measures to prevent IV drug incompatibilities in clinical practice

d) Ensure IV medication safety and improve the overall quality of patient care