ISMP Medication Safety Alert!®
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The articles listed below were featured in the ISMP Medication Safety Alert! newsletters. New articles are frequently published highlighting important medication safety information. Related articles can be found in the full newsletter publications. You can subscribe to the full newsletters here.
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EPINEPHrine is dosed by weight when used to treat an allergic reaction or anaphylaxis, not by whether the patient is an adult or child. Thus, generic brands of the EPINEPHrine autoinjector do not use the abbreviation “Jr” for the 0.15 mg dosage strength (see Figure 1).
The abbreviation “Jr” is already part of the EPIPEN trademark used for that strength. However, given that dosing is weight-based, please be sure staff are aware that generics will list the metric strength only, 0.3 mg or 0.15 mg. Patients 30 kg (approximately 66 pounds) or heavier should use a 0.3 mg injector. Those who weigh...