ROCHESTER, N.Y. — The nationwide shortage of IV fluids has led to significant changes in how local hospitals treat patients. Both UR Medicine and Rochester Regional have successfully reduced their IV fluid usage by half.

The shortage began when Hurricane Helene damaged the largest IV fluid manufacturing plant in the country. Hospitals, unable to stockpile these fluids due to their bulky nature, had to quickly adapt.

“Fluids are big, bulky, and heavy, so you would need large warehouses,” explained Curt Haas, Chief Pharmacy Officer at URMC. “It’s a commodity that’s critically important that is managed just in time in most healthcare situations.”

The shortage is expected to continue until at least the start of the new year. However, Golisano Children’s Hospital, part of Strong, received special allocations due to its status as a children’s hospital.

Initially, local hospitals postponed some elective surgeries to conserve fluids for critical cases. That pause has now been lifted as hospitals have found alternative methods to manage the shortage.

Casey Wilbert, Chief Pharmacy Officer at Rochester Regional Health, mentioned exploring oral rehydration options like Gatorlite, Gatorade, Pedialyte, and Liquid IV.

“It’s not going to be quite as good as those IV fluids, but it’s definitely better than just drinking water,” Wilbert said.

Patients are now allowed to drink water closer to surgery time, and medical teams are opting for oral medications that don’t require IV bags. Over the last decade, studies have increasingly questioned the necessity of IV fluids in certain situations, and this crisis has accelerated that evaluation.

“There are practices that have existed for years that maybe we don’t need to necessarily be doing,” said Haas. “We’ve kinda gotten into this steady state of okay, these are the tactics we did to conserve fluids, let’s see if some of these are going to stick and hold on because they’re still taking good care of patients.”

Both URMC and Rochester Regional now employ full-time staff dedicated to anticipating and planning for drug shortages. This highlights the ongoing issue of shortages and the need for constant adaptation to provide the best patient care.

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• Hospitals face IV fluid shortages because of Helene; URMC is working to minimize impact

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