“But I haven’t even seen v8.1a yet…”

I know that most of you haven’t had time to download and review v8.1a yet, and last week on December 11th, we released v8.1b. After several months in beta, v8.1a was made available for General Release on November 26th. The beta version of 8.1a had been in use by over 50 customers - many for several months, however, after v8.1a was released, we became aware of certain scenarios which could lead to incorrect system-generated compounding instructions.

We took this very seriously and we immediately notified every customer who had downloaded v8.1a. We also removed the update from our download page. We were disappointed that this action was necessary, but we all agreed that it was necessary.

Auto-generated Compounding Instructions is a popular CPR+ feature that was initially released with v8.0a. The purpose is to automatically build precise reconstitution and preparation instructions for the medications selected on the Compounding Record. Based on the logic in SCS’s The Specialized Clinician system (which we acquired in June 2006), we extended the functionality to allow you to select multiple vial sizes and/or different concentrations of the same medication on the Compounding Record - something SCS did not allow. In trying to improve the auto-generated instructions when multiple vial sizes and/or different concentrations were used for a compound, we overlooked certain scenarios which generated inaccurate instructions. As you can imagine, building compounding instructions for different types of medications – powders, solutions, etc., with empty and non-empty containers, multiple doses per container, different concentrations of generically equivalent drugs - is very tricky stuff. We recognize however, that it is critically important that we get it right.

To meet this challenge, we gathered our best designers, developers and QA staff to analyze the problem and design the solution. We decided to take the opportunity to significantly improve the overall functionality of this feature. Our sincere thanks go out to Brian Sweeney, Clinical Pharmacist with WellSpan Infusion Service in Pennsylvania for his help in the identification of this issue and for testing the enhancement. To eliminate any possible confusion, we made these changes (and only these changes) to what was the v8.1a update and released the new code set as v8.1b.

As contained in PDL #27462, CPR+ v8.1b now generates even more detailed, clear and complete Compounding Instructions. The enhanced functionality includes reconstitution instructions for each generically equivalent medication linked to the order, the total medication that will be derived from all ingredients selected on the Compounding Record, specific instructions indicating the precise volume of medication needed to prep each container / dose, specific fluid volumes needed to QS up to the dosing volume (with overfill) and, as needed, instructions to waste excess medication from the batch if more is prepared than needed to fulfill the order.

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