Our department’s poster on ongoing efforts to promote effective stewardship of intravenous acetaminophen was awarded Best Abstract during the UF Health 2020 Patient Safety and Quality Week poster session on Wednesday, March 11.
The poster, titled “Perioperative IV Acetaminophen Stewardship: Effective Analgesia and Cost Containment” represents a collaboration with our colleagues in Pharmacy and was one of two from the Department of Anesthesiology at the poster session, which featured 45 posters. The other was titled “Treatment of Intraoperative Hyperglycemia with Insulin: Our Journey to Understanding and Making Improvements” by Nelson Algarra, MS, MD, Lawrence Caruso, MD, Stephanie Gore, MSN, RN, and Robert Loeb, MD.
Also, as part of the week’s events, Cameron Smith, MD, PhD, Assistant Professor of Anesthesiology, gave a presentation on the acetaminophen initiative on Tuesday, March 10. Our Acetaminophen Stewardship Team has dramatically increased the use of the far less costly oral formulation of acetaminophen, helping to ensure that the intravenous option is available for situations when it is deemed necessary and reducing institution costs. Estimates for annualized cost savings approach $800,000 for year 1 and are likely to increase in future years.
The annual Patient Safety and Quality Week events were presented by the UF Health Sebastian Ferrero Office of Clinical Quality and Patient Safety.
Read more about our Acetaminophen Stewardship Team’s efforts.