Health IT Answers | June 2026
In this Health IT Answers piece, Omnicell Senior Manager of Clinical Strategists Kilee Yarosh argues that everyday medication shortages — not just headline-grabbing national emergencies — create a patient-safety chain reaction that most health systems are ill-equipped to manage. When a constraint surfaces after a care plan is already in motion, what may appear to be a simple substitution can trigger a cascade of downstream dependencies: dosing conversions, new infusion parameters, compatibility checks, revised monitoring requirements, and patient education gaps. The core problem isn't the clinical decision itself, Yarosh contends — it's whether every stakeholder in the medication-use process has the visibility and tools to execute that decision consistently under time pressure.
Her proposed solution rests on three pillars: surfacing inventory constraints at the point of order entry before plans are finalized, standardizing substitution workflows with clear roles, documentation requirements, and patient education that stays synchronized with what's actually dispensed, and closing the loop across platforms so that prescribers, pharmacists, nurses, and patients share a consistent understanding of what changed and why. Yarosh is direct about what success looks like — not eliminating substitutions, which health systems can't control, but making them predictable, well-communicated, and fully supported from order entry through follow-up care.