Drug Expiration Dates

[Eydawn]

We check every drug box the last day of the month. Anything with that month's expiry gets chucked and replaced that day.

Even so, I found an expired terbutaline the other day...

Wendy

CO EMT-B

[CBEMT]

Kind of depends on the hospital we're switching at. There used to be one that would replace expired meds, then they got a new pharmacist and that stopped. Some will take meds up to the last day of the expiration month, others won't take it past the first day.

I'm in charge of meds at my full-time job. I usually stay two months ahead on everything, just to be safe. Anything that's expiring in the next 60 days on the truck or in stock gets collected, and then it's off to the hospital.

[PabloT]

I've always been told it's the END of the month unless the box says otherwise. In all fairness, I've never read that anywhere, but it's what's been taught to me in school and multiple departments in two different states.

[ncmedic309]

It's good to get ideas on how other services do it and just as I expected we have a mix of responses. I'm going to try to get ahold of a couple manufacturers today and see what they recommend. I would imagine they would say the first of the expiration month, mainly due to the need to replace the drugs more often and increase their revenue but I may be wrong. We only operate with two ALS ambulances and one ALS QRV at my full-time service, we purchase our own drugs and pulling them anytime prior to the expiration date is just not cost efficient for us. I'll let you all know if I come up any additional information...

[Arizonaffcep]

For us, the drugs expire on the last day of the month and year listed. We switch them at the hospital (we purchase our own, but have an agreement with them to switch them out, as they inevitably use them quicker than we do) 2 months before listed expiration date. On the drugs that require refrigeration, we write OOF (out of fridge) on the bottle the day we take it out (with that days date), and they expire 14 days from that date.

[explenture]

Our system goes by the last day of the listed month