From: Becky Ginn
Sent: Wednesday, July 19, 2017 10:14 AM
To: Pharmacy Department
Subject: Critical labetalol shortage - PLAN at HH Main
Importance: High
Attachment: Labetalol multidose vials flyer

There is a critical shortage of labetalol syringes and a much reduced supply of labetalol vials. Due to the syringe shortage, we are going to transition some of the high-use areas to using a multi-dose 20 mL vial instead of the 4 mL syringes. NOTE: the vials and the syringes are the same concentration (5 mg/mL). Please see the attached flyer that describes the process for the nursing units.

PHARMACY KEY POINTS:

1. As units are transitioned to the multi-dose vials, the syringes will be removed from their machine.
2. The 20 mL multi-dose vials must be protected from light (kept in the box). When the 20 mL vials are dispensed by pharmacy, we will be placing a 28-day expiration date label on both the outside of the box and on the vial on the inside. These expiration date labels can be printed from MILT (under labetalol 6-barcode label entry).
3. During this time, some machines will have 20 mL vials and some will continue to have only the 4 mL syringes.

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Becky Ginn, Pharm.D.
Huntsville Hospital