Objectives Vial sharing practices introduce risk to aseptic compounding. This review aims to quantify the financial gain that can be achieved from taking on this additional risk.

Method By looking at all drug doses compounded over a 2-year period at a general district hospital, it has been possible to calculate the number of vials used along with the amount of each drug that was wasted. From there it was possible to use the drug doses compounded and model this data against four different options around vial sharing. Option 1 was for no vial sharing, option 2 was for vial sharing on a single day, option 3 was for vial sharing Monday to Friday and option 4 was for vial sharing on a rolling 7-day basis. Options 3 and 4 allowed for an added consumable cost per vial.

Results Over the 2-year period, a rolling 7-day vial sharing practice showed considerable cost savings. This saving was not uniform across all drugs compounded, with some high-cost low-volume drugs resulting in additional cost from a rolling 7-day vial sharing practice.

Conclusions Vial sharing is cost effective against increased consumable costs and can be further enhanced by selecting the drugs to use vial sharing for.