Emergency
A phone call was just received by your pharmacy purchasing agent. The sole remaining manufacturer of injectable sodium bicarbonate, Hospira, just declared bankruptcy and will close its manufacturing facility immediately. The COVIS-19 pandemic led to a massage loss of income, making it impossible to sustain their factory in the US. Buildings and equipment have been confiscated by lenders to pay off debts. In the last year, all other manufacturers ceased producing injectable sodium bicarbonate due to lack of profits.
Parenteral sodium bicarbonate is used to treat metabolic acidosis, commonly seen in intensive care units. Your team is the administrative staff of the department of pharmacy. When you look at your hospital wide inventory, you project that you have enough drug to provide care for 2 weeks.
Create a plan that you would put in place to sustain your patients until the shortage is resolved. Items to consider would be how do you control what you have in stock (1 pt), where you look to purchase more drug (1 pt), what alternatives are there for dosage forms (1 pt), what therapeutic substitutions do you have (1 pt), and how do you communicate the issue (1 pt)
