Manage Expiring Soon Settings

The Expiring Soon feature alerts users about medications in a kit or bin that have not yet expired but which will expire… soon. There are two primary ways to use this feature:

1. To avoid sending out kits with items that will expire before the kit will be used again. For example, a crash cart can sit out on the floor for a month before it gets used so you wouldn’t want to send out a crash cart tray you just finished restocking with a medication that expires in 15 days.
2. Reduce waste due to expiration by providing sufficient time to re-allocate slow moving and/or expensive drugs to areas where Pharmacy has more control over which packages are used and/or by leaving items in kits until closer to their expiration date to increase the likelihood they get used. For example, you might have a slow-moving, expensive drug in one of your trays that is also used in your sterile compounding room. Vials that have not yet expired (but will expire soon) can be removed from the tray and repositioned to the sterile compounding room where pharmacy staff can ensure the items are used before they expire.

To support these various scenarios, users with the appropriate permissions can set the Expiring Soon window at the hospital level, the Kit Master level, the Formulary Item level and at the Bin level. Here are some things to consider when thinking through your Expiring Soon strategy. 

Hospital Setting - The Expiring Soon window set at the hospital level applies to all kits and bins by default unless otherwise overridden using one of the settings outlined below. A hospital-level Expiring Soon window is required and was initially set during your deployment. If you want to review or update your hospital level Expiring soon window you can do so by clicking your User Account profile > go to Hospital Settings > Hospital > Expiring Soon.

Kit Master Setting - Override the hospital setting at the Kit Master level if you want to apply a different time frame to just specific kits. For example, perhaps you want the expiring soon window to be 30 days for all of your kits except for your Anesthesia trays which generally get processed every day except on the weekends. In this scenario, you would set the Hospital Expiring Soon window to be 30 days and the Expiring Soon window for the Anesthesia tray kit master to be 1-3 days. To set the Expiring Soon window for a Kit Master, navigate to Inventory > Manage Kit Masters > Kit Master Name > Edit Settings. 

Formulary Item Setting - Override your hospital setting at the Formulary Item level if you want the Expiring Soon window to be different just for specific drugs. For example, we often see hospitals set shorter Expiring Soon windows for refrigerated items, like Rocuronium, that have a higher likelihood of expiring before being used or drugs that are currently on shortage. Alternatively, some hospitals set longer Expiring Soon windows for very expensive drugs so that they sufficient time to reposition those vials to a location where they can ensure they are used before expiring (e.g. sterile compounding room). 

Bin Setting - Override your hospital setting at the Bin level if you want the Expiring Soon window to be different for specific Bins. To set the Expiring Soon window for Bins, navigate to Inventory > Bins > Bin Name.