Anesthesia Coding Alert

Check out this top advice from the ASA's infection control task force.

One of the top news stories in recent weeks has been an outbreak of fungal meningitis among patients who received medications from New England Compounding Center (NECC) after May 21, 2012. Share these tips with your anesthesia providers to help keep them -- and their patients -- safe, straight from the American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA).

Background: Three lots of methylprednisolone acetate produced by NECC are implicated in the current outbreak of fungal meningitis. Patients received injections of the medication to treat back pain. At press time, a total of 119 cases of fungal meningitis linked to the injections had been reported in 10 states, according to the CDC.

Quick tips: Point your anesthesia providers to "Recommendations for Infection Control for the Practice of Anesthesiology (Third Edition)" for everyday infection control advice. The paper was developed by the ASA Committee on Occupational Health Task Force on Infection Control, chaired by Robin A. Stackhouse, M.D. Good reminders from the paper include:

• Do not reuse needles, cannulae, or syringes for another patient or to reaccess a medication or solution.
• Use single-dose vials (SDVs) for parenteral medications whenever possible rather than a multidose vials.
• Do not administer medications from SDVs or ampules to multiple patients or combine leftover contents for later use.
• If multi-dose vials (MDVs) must be used, both the needle or cannula and syringe used to access the MDV must be sterile.
• Do not keep MDVs for use on multiple patients in the immediate patient treatment area.
• Discard the vial(s) if sterility is compromised or questionable.
• Consider a syringe or needle/cannula contaminated once it has been used to enter or connect to a patient's intravenous infusion bag or administration set.
• Use fluid infusion and administration sets (intravenous bags, tubing, connectors, etc.) for one patient only and dispose appropriately after use.

Resource: Visit the ASA website (http://www.asahq.org) to view the entire infection control document. Click on "What's New" or scroll through the ASA statements/positions list for "Fungal meningitis outbreak information."