Claudia Hildebrant, a pharmacy technician at LHSC's University Hospital holds up a prepared antibiotic IV bag.
March 27, 2025
Ever wonder how the medications get into an IV bag?
Claudia Hildebrant is a Pharmacy Technician at London Health Sciences Centre’s (LHSC) University Hospital. You won’t see her in a retail pharmacy. Hildebrant works behind the scenes to prepare medications for distribution to various inpatients across the organization.
One of the areas that patients don’t see is the sterile compound room with locations at both University and Victoria Hospital. The sterile compound room is where many medications and nutrition products that are injected directly into a patient through an intravenous drip are prepared to minimize the risk of contamination of the product. The team members who work in these areas are specially trained technicians who are re-certified on an annual basis.
Hildebrant joined LHSC in 2019 after graduating from the Pharmacy Technician Program at Westervelt College (now Anderson College). She was trained to work in the sterile compound room a few years after joining the Pharmacy team.
“I like knowing that the work we do down in Pharmacy and the medications we are sending out and delivering are going directly to a patient, helping them get better or helping save their life,” says Hildebrant. “We are the hub of the hospital when it comes to patient medications and collaborate with the health-care teams on the units to provide care.”
In the photos below, Hildebrant is able to prepare a batch of Piperacillin/tazobactam antibiotic in the sterile compound room at LHSC’s University Hospital. From start to finish this process took approximately 10 minutes. The medications she prepares are used to provide care to patients at both University and Victoria Hospitals.
Pharmacists and Pharmacy Technicians at LHSC prepare hundreds of medications each day in addition to providing clinical support, drug information services, drug procurement and more.
The preparation of Piperacillin/Tazobactam antibiotic batch for shipping to Victoria Hospital. Batches of antibiotics are prepared when there is a large number of the same dosage of a medication needed for multiple patients.
Step 1: Claudia gathers the products and supplies she will need to make one batch of 10 bags of piperacillin/tazobactam antibiotic. This includes the bags and antibiotic vials in a tray.
Step 2: She then enters the various components she has gathered into the computer’s Pharmacy keeper system using a bar code scanner. This helps ensure she has all the correct components she needs and helps track the products.
Step 3: Labels are then printed ready to be placed onto the products once they are prepared.
Step 4: To reduce contamination, Hildebrant uses a disinfectant wipe on all the components including the tray that will go into the sterile compound room.
Step 5: Once the components are wiped down, they are placed in the double-sided pass through which helps prevent the depressurization of the sterile compound room which is kept at a different level to help reduce airborne particles.
Step 6: To enter the sterile room and make sure she doesn’t accidentally bring any potential contaminants in, Hildebrant enters the anteroom to put on her gown, cap, gloves and boot covers, and clean her hands.
Step 7: Once inside the sterile compound room, Hildebrant opens the sterile compound room door of the pass through to gather the products and take them to a bench to start preparing the product which includes opening the Pharmacy Keeper software on an iPad at the work bench.
She follows the steps outlined in the software for the preparation of Piperacillin/tazobactam antibiotic which includes:
- Taking the foil seal off the vials:
- Pushing the vial onto the bag:
- Taking images of the expiration dates of the products
Step 8: After the bags are prepared, she places them back into pass through and gets ready to leave the sterile compound room, removing her PPE.
Step 9: Once outside the sterile compound room, Hildebrant grabs the product out of the pass through and takes it over to a colleague to have it double checked.
Step 10: Now the medication has been double-checked it is labelled.
Step 11: Hildebrant then places the medication into totes ready for shipping to Victoria Hospital to be used to care for patients on various units.
