Pharmacy tips alert prescribers to common medication ordering challenges and solutions.
STAT vs. First Dose
Challenge: When entering a medication order, how can you ensure your patient has the first dose scheduled immediately?
Context: While selecting the "STAT" button in the order composer ensures your order goes to the top of the pharmacy verification queue, selecting the STAT button alone does not ensure that your patient's first dose will be scheduled right away. STAT indicates priority only, not the dispense time or administration time. And, because Connect Care uses SMAT (standardized medication administration times), unless you also indicate the desired time for the first dose, the timing of the first dose will default to SMAT, which may be a few hours away.
Solution: To ensure that your patient has a dose scheduled immediately, click the "Include Now" button in the "First Dose" field of the Frequency selection, as well as the "STAT" button in the Priority section. If you select "As Scheduled" in the First Dose field plus STAT, you will get a yellow warning to update your desired start time (click on the camera icon to see the screenshot).
