Baxter International saw a key facility flooded out during Hurricane Helene, one that produces around 60% of IV fluids used in the U.S. And though it has since restarted some production, the fallout persists with healthcare providers across the country forced to ration the products.
"Since that time, we've had to go to conservation strategies in order to continue to take care of our patients. So we've done things like pause or reschedule some elective surgeries, " Baptist Health Lexington Chief Medical Officer Dr. Lee Dossett explained. "Those would be surgeries that we don't consider urgent or emergent or that would would cause harm to the patient to delay."
Right now, he says, it's not a situation people undergoing inpatient services should notice.
"I would tell patients that come to the emergency room if you get admitted for something, we have plenty of fluids on hands to take care of the patients the way they need to be taken care of. So I'm not worried about that," he says.
For the time being, it remains an evolving situation and Dossett says it could be a couple months before things feel normal on the hospital side.
Down the road, UK HealthCare says it's implemented "wide-ranging measures" to conserve supplies and created a task force to identify and assist in projected supply constraints. In a statement, the university says it hasn't needed to cancel any "patient procedures," but they are continuing to monitor the situation.
At CHI Saint Joseph Health, a spokesperson wrote that "patient safety remains our highest priority. We currently do not have any shortages; however, we are proactively taking recommended steps to conserve supplies."
Meanwhile, Baxter has at least one line of production back up and running, but Dossett notes that hospitals vary in the amounts and kinds of fluids they utilize, meaning the process is still in wait-and-see mode. As for the outlook...
"We've communicated anything that needs to be at least through November that's been been affected and things are still evolving," he explains. As Baxter ramps production back up, he hopes the hospital will have "a better idea of what the next couple months look like. So we'll make decisions about cases in December and beyond. But you there's a chance that some of those cases still may be affected. We're we're hoping that things will start to to improve."
NPR reports the ongoing shortage has hospitals across the nation rethinking how they manage patient hydration.
