Soon to be outdated supplies

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medicof847

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I was wondering how your services are dealing with medications and supplies tghat are about to go out of date. Like if your service is a slow service and have a bunch of D 50% go out of date what do you do with it.
 
Throw it away (obviously using the right methods to dispose of it) or donate it to EMT/Paramedic programs.
 
Contact your boss. If still curious, contact your EMSA and maybe for State's department governing hazardous wastes. Some pharmacies will do it, mostly for a fee. But do talk to for boss.

Meds: they will probably contact the supplier first. Meds need to be disposed of without going into landfill or down the drain. D50 and other sugars can, ditto normal saline.

Stuff with needles (like glucagon and epi kits or pens) need to be handled as shapes. They will be incinerated that way.
 
I know that if it expires it can not be used. What i am talking about if there is a way to exchange them with another service so they don't go to waste.
 
Talk to your boss. Even if outdated they re still your company's property.

Our local animal shelter accepts nearly expired, or clean but unused/unsterile, or clean and otherwise thrown out human materials and puts them to use on animals, using their waste stream to get rid of the no-good stuff. Hard plastic syringe covers are split to become splints, O2 tubing is used to tie things or even as O2 tubing, and a lot of human meds (like insulin, epinephrine) can be used in other species and the doseage is known. If your company throws everything away, suggest they could do that donation, then volunteer with the boss's OK to make that contact with the shelter's veterinarian.

While this could save your company a little money, don't use the shelter as a dumping ground for masses of outdated stuff, keep in touch and see what they are really looking for. If the shelter has a tax deductible status, your company could take a deduction, maybe? And if it is a County facility, many of those have a tax deductible auxiliary (aka ""friends of the ...") to accept such "in-kind" donations.

Our local zoo has three old but useable BVM's and a lab centrifuge without a cover but otherwise useable thanks to you know who, and all done legally and over the counter.
 
Use for training: we add blue food coloring to some meds (that can't be abused) or dump the meds and add blue saline to the bottle/carpuject.
 
mycrofft said:
Talk to your boss. Even if outdated they re still your company's property.

Our local animal shelter accepts nearly expired, or clean but unused/unsterile, or clean and otherwise thrown out human materials and puts them to use on animals, using their waste stream to get rid of the no-good stuff. Hard plastic syringe covers are split to become splints, O2 tubing is used to tie things or even as O2 tubing, and a lot of human meds (like insulin, epinephrine) can be used in other species and the doseage is known. If your company throws everything away, suggest they could do that donation, then volunteer with the boss's OK to make that contact with the shelter's veterinarian.

While this could save your company a little money, don't use the shelter as a dumping ground for masses of outdated stuff, keep in touch and see what they are really looking for. If the shelter has a tax deductible status, your company could take a deduction, maybe? And if it is a County facility, many of those have a tax deductible auxiliary (aka ""friends of the ...") to accept such "in-kind" donations.

Our local zoo has three old but useable BVM's and a lab centrifuge without a cover but otherwise useable thanks to you know who, and all done legally and over the counter.
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All that is probably the coolest thing I've EVER heard.
 
Change around the protocols so the meds get used more often.
 
epipusher said:
Change around the protocols so the meds get used more often.
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YOu can only give each pt so many meds :rofl:

Well ma'am you sugar is 70, it's not "low" but it's not 90 to 120 so here's some d50. Oh you stubbed your toe? 100 mcg/fent q5, nauseous? 8 mg zofran coming right up. let's get bilat lines and run NS wide open then push 40 mg lasix to keep her from getting fluid overloaded.

:rofl:

Ours get tossed or donated to the paramedic program we run.

We are a pretty busy service at 80k calls annually and we still throw stuff away every month.
 
medicof847 said:
I was wondering how your services are dealing with medications and supplies tghat are about to go out of date. Like if your service is a slow service and have a bunch of D 50% go out of date what do you do with it.
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Most agencies I know use it for training or donate to Paramedic programs for education.
 
Actually, in today's environment of drug shortages, expiration dates are becoming more flexible in some areas.

Biggest thing - if you're outdating a lot of stuff, you should probably re-evaluate your supply ordering process. Perhaps you don't need to order 50 D50 all at once, you could order 20 every few months when you start to get low. - downside there is in times like now, when there are shortages, you don't have so much backup.
 
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