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When intravenous medications are involved in adverse drug events, their harmful effects may occur more rapidly, and be more severe than errors with oral medications. This is due to the direct administration into the bloodstream.
Human kidneys will clean about 1 million gallons of blood in an average lifetime.
When blood is exposed to air, it clots. Heparin allows the blood to come in direct contact with air without clotting.
Excessive alcohol use costs the country approximately $235 billion every year.
Though newer “smart” infusion pumps are increasingly becoming more sophisticated, they cannot prevent all programming and administration errors. Health care professionals that use smart infusion pumps must still practice the rights of medication administration and have other professionals double-check all high-risk infusions.