IV Fluid Shortage FAQ
As a result of Hurricane Helene, there is a nationwide shortage of intravenous (IV) fluids that is impacting EvergreenHealth and many hospitals across our region. EvergreenHealth's leaders, doctors and staff are closely monitoring the nationwide shortage as well as the potential impacts from Hurricane Milton. IV fluids are used in many ways in hospitals and health care settings, including to treat dehydration, to deliver medications, to stabilize blood pressure, to help with blood transfusions, and during many surgeries.
As a community-owned hospital, EvergreenHealth remains dedicated to providing safe, high-quality care for you, your loved ones and everyone in our community during this shortage. We've provided the following FAQs to help you understand how the IV fluids shortage is impacting EvergreenHealth and how we are responding.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why is there a shortage of IV fluids?
Hurricane Helene impacted a major manufacturing facility of IV fluids in North Carolina, namely the hospital products supplier Baxter. The facility supplies roughly 60% of the IV solutions used daily throughout the U.S.
The shortage is impacting hospitals nationwide, and EvergreenHealth is no exception.
How is EvergreenHealth responding to the shortage?
EvergreenHealth remains fully committed to providing safe, high-quality care to everyone in our community during this challenging time.
Our clinical leaders are carefully monitoring and managing our current stock IV fluids and have implemented conservation strategies to ensure safety without compromising patient care.
What are the conservation measures in place?
EvergreenHealth is taking steps to conserve IV fluid supplies by using alternatives such as oral hydration when appropriate and adjusting how we administer certain medications when our doctors and staff determine it is safe to do so.
We are also temporarily postponing certain elective surgeries that require a large amount of IV fluids of any kind throughout the hospital stay. This is necessary to conserve fluid supplies for emergent and urgent procedures that cannot be delayed.
If your surgery is affected by this temporary pause, your surgeon will contact you. Your procedure will be rescheduled as soon as it is safe to do so.
Emergent and urgent surgeries will continue as planned. Surgeries that require a small amount of IV fluids through the hospital stay will be evaluated on a case-by-case basis for consideration to continue as planned.
These measures are designed to preserve resources for critical cases while still delivering the best possible care to all patients. Your safety and the safety of all of our patients is always our absolute priority. This decision to temporarily pause certain surgeries is a proactive measure to ensure we can continue to deliver safe and effective care to everyone.
As a public hospital district, it is an inherent part of our mission to provide access to safe and high-quality care for everyone we serve in our district. We are in daily communication with government agencies and our IV solution supplier seeking to increase supply as soon as possible. We aim to keep you updated with the latest information as it becomes available. Your care team is always available to answer any additional questions you have about your procedure or your care in general.
