Problems of administering drugs by continuous infusion.

A study of how often drugs were administered by continuous intravenous infusion to patients occupying 110 surgical and 50 medical beds showed that an average of 48 drug additions were made to intravenous fluids each week: 15% of these were of more than one drug and 15% were of drugs incompatible either with each other or with the infusion fluid. As a result of the survey an educational programme was developed to bring these problems to the attention of the staff concerned. After this programme a second survey showed only 18 additives had been given to patients occupying the same 160 beds and none of these were incompatible mixtures.