Presentation (CTI)

OBJECTIVES: Healthcare system resources are significantly constrained. As demand for care increases, it becomes critical to optimise resources to improve efficiency of healthcare settings. SC formulations of IV medicines can be simpler and quicker to administer and therefore have potential to alleviate the burden in secondary care through significant time and resource savings. A SIM was developed to quantify the time saved from switching from an IV infusion to a SC injection in a UK healthcare setting.
METHODS: A SIM was developed to quantify the impact of switching patients from IV to SC administration for a hypothetical 1000 IV infusions in a single hospital on three key resources over a 12-month period: pharmacy and aseptic preparation time; time spent in chair; and nurse time for administering and monitoring patients. The base case assumes a three-week treatment period for both formulations; clinical outcomes are equivalent for each formulation; and 75% of patients switch to SC. Scenario analyses includes varying the proportion switching to SC, and administering IV infusions over longer intervals compared with three-weekly SC injections.
RESULTS: The base case results showed that switching 75% of patients to SC would release a total of 950 hours currently spent administering IV infusions (39.6 days); 438 hours of pharmacy and aseptic preparation time; 413 hours of chair time; and 100 hours of nurse time. Reducing the proportion switching to SC still results in time savings of 633 hours (50% switch) and 317 hours (25% switch). Savings on time and healthcare resource are observed for SC vs IV at different infusion intervals even at 8 weekly IV infusions.
CONCLUSIONS: Switching from IV to SC eases pharmacy workload and reduces both chair time and nurse time. This SIM shows that adopting SC injections optimises healthcare resource utilisation through significant time savings and could improve productivity.