Learning Center
Collaborative Strategies for Safe IV Therapy: Strengthening Nurse-Pharmacist Partnerships from Prescription to Infusion [virtual]
Includes a Live Web Event on 04/13/2026 at 1:30 PM (EDT)
Nurses face persistent challenges in ensuring the complete and safe delivery of infusion medications. Factors, such as infusion pump limitations, tubing configurations, and small-volume drug formulations, often result in incomplete dosing and medication waste. While this is especially critical with antineoplastic agents, the issue extends across a wide range of infusion therapies. These challenges often go unrecognized by other health care professionals, leaving nurses to manage the consequences—potentially compromising patient safety and care quality.
Interdisciplinary collaboration, particularly between nurses and pharmacists, is essential to address these barriers. By aligning workflows and understanding each other's roles, teams can reduce drug waste, improve dosing accuracy, and enhance safety in handling hazardous drugs. This presentation will offer practical strategies to optimize infusion practices, minimize patient wait times, and support safe, effective administration of both antineoplastic and supportive therapies.
Learning Objectives: At the conclusion of this session, learners will be able to:
- Explain the importance of interdisciplinary collaboration, particularly between nurses and pharmacists, in optimizing infusion therapy practices
- Identify strategies to align nursing and pharmacy workflows to improve dosing accuracy, reduce drug waste, and enhance safety in handling hazardous and nonhazardous drugs
- Describe the negative consequences of inaccurate administration of small volume antineoplastics and supportive care medications, as well as other medication therapies given by infusion
- Discuss 3 administration methods that minimize residual drug volume, reduce waste, and limit staff exposure to hazardous drugs
- Describe the infusion pump and tubing challenges that impact the safe and accurate administration of antineoplastic and other infused drugs
Contact Hours: 1
CRNI® RUs: 2
MiKaela M. Olsen, DNP, APRN-CNS, AOCNS®, FAAN
Clinical Program Director for Oncology
Johns Hopkins Hospital and the Johns Hopkins Health System
MiKaela M. Olsen, DNP, APRN-CNS, AOCNS®, FAAN, serves as the Clinical Program Director for Oncology at Johns Hopkins Hospital and the Johns Hopkins Health System. In this role, she partners with oncology nurse leaders, physician leaders, and frontline clinical staff to advance best practices and ensure seamless coordination of care across the health system. She also works closely with oncology service line leadership to align core competencies and harmonize standards of care throughout the Johns Hopkins Cancer service line.
Dr Olsen holds academic appointments as Adjunct Faculty at the Johns Hopkins School of Nursing and Faculty Associate at the University of Maryland School of Nursing.
She co-chairs the Johns Hopkins Health System Venous Access Device Committees and the central line-associated bloodstream infection (CLABSI) Reduction Committee. Additionally, she is the lead editor of the Chemotherapy and Immunotherapy Guidelines and Recommendations for Practice, 2nd Edition (2023) and the Safe Handling of Hazardous Drugs, 4th Edition (2024). Dr Olsen is the co-chair of the American Society of Clinical Oncology/Oncology Nursing Society (ASCO ONS) Antineoplastic Administration Standards (2025). Her scholarship includes numerous publications and presentations on the safe handling of hazardous drugs and the occupational risks faced by health care workers, antineoplastic drug administration and side effect management, central vascular access devices, and prevention of infection.
As an instructor and consultant, Dr Olsen has shared her expertise internationally, traveling to Singapore, the UAE, China, Bulgaria, and Japan to strengthen nursing education in oncology and to raise global awareness of hazardous drug exposure risks and safe handling practices.
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