Epinephrine injected incorrectly in hospital

[SilverLining]

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/alberta-patients-put-at-risk-by-adrenalin-injection-mistakes-documents-show-1.3079716

Doctors generally prescribe epinephrine intravenously for life-threatening situations such as cardiac arrest. Because the effects are so immediate — a sharp rise in blood pressure, heart rate and heart contractions — it can save lives.

But epinephrine is also prescribed for allergic reactions, and that's where the confusion arises.

Health workers accustomed to giving epinephrine through an IV in life-threatening cases sometimes administer it that way when an IV is not required: the right medication, given the wrong way.

Typically, when a patient has an allergic reaction, epinephrine should instead be given as it is with an EpiPen — through muscle or under the skin, where it is more slowly absorbed.

But she started to worry when the nurse said she would give her epinephrine and prepared her arm for an IV.

"Is this a new way of giving it?" Van Dyk said she asked the nurse at the time. She was used to getting epinephrine injections, but had never had one like this. The drug had only ever been given to her as a shot to her thigh or stomach, as with an EpiPen.

So much about this article is poorly written. First, they make it sound like anaphylaxis is not life threatening.

But reading beyond that....a hospital not knowing how to inject epinephrine for anaphylaxis is pretty scarey.

And the patient quoted says usually she gets it in the thigh or stomach.  I thought that was no longer recommended.