What is changing
Respiratory Care Professionals (RCPs) will be allowed to discontinue nebulized budesonide for patients who are receiving IV or PO stress dose corticosteroids.
Rationale
Patients who are already receiving a “blast” of corticosteroids do not benefit from the addition of nebulized steroids; this redundancy represents a waste of both RCP time and medication.
Planned “Go-Live” date
June 15, 2016
Additional helpful details
Stress dose corticosteroids: prednisone/prednisolone: 20+ mg/day; methylprednisolone: 16+ mg/day, hydrocortisone: 40+ mg/day or cortisone: 100+ mg/day
RCPs must inform the ordering or attending provider that the med is being discontinued, and it can only be done during day shift hours (no pages at 0300!)
This change was approved at a recent P&T meeting and was a collaborative effort with Marty Johnson, M.D., and Bill Cohagen (RCP Manager).
For questions or concerns:
Call Matt Tanner in Pharmacy at 4-2048 or email.