U.S. hospitals are experiencing a shortage of IV fluids, triggered by a disruption at Baxter's North Carolina plant following Hurricane Helene. As hospitals have scrambled to conserve supplies, at least one health system found it had been overusing IV fluids in patient care, Bloomberg reported Nov. 12.
Falls Church, Va.-based Inova Health System reduced its daily IV fluid consumption from 2,100 bags per day to 1,000. Despite the reduction, Inova did not have to postpone elective surgeries, unlike many other hospitals.
The drop in usage raised questions about whether hospitals were relying on more IV fluids than necessary. Inova's chief of research stewardship, Sam Elgawly, MD, told Bloomberg that while the hospital was not necessarily using double the amount of fluids, the decrease in usage highlighted inefficiencies in standard practice.
The shortage prompted hospitals to adapt new strategies to preserve their supplies. One key change is the shift from IV drips, where a bag is slowly administered, to IV pushes, where medications are injected directly into the IV line, Dr. Elgawly said. Inova has begun using this approach for some antibiotics and acid blockers, which eliminates the need for an entire IV bag for certain treatments.
Many of these changes are expected to remain in place even after the shortage ends, he said.