Smart Pumps, Smart Management, Safe Patients When Organizations and Clinicians Team Up, Patients Are Protected
Smart pumps, smart management, safe patients When organizations and clinicians team up, patients are protected. By Dawn Berndt, DNP, RN, CRNI®, and Marlene Steinheiser, PhD, RN, CRNI® MEDICATION administration errors are among the most vexing and costly events in health- care. For the patient, errors related to thera- peutic infusions can present grave conse- quences, including therapy disruption, over- or underdosing that reduces the therapeutic ef- fect, debilitating injury, or death. In 2020, the Institute for Safe Medication Practices (ISMP) published Guidelines for Optimizing Safe Im- plementation and Use of Smart Infusion Pumps. This resource, compiled and reviewed by clinical experts, outlines the components necessary for developing an organizational in- Bi-directional benefits and challenges Bi-directional smart infusion pumps raise frastructure that promotes safe patient care us- the standard of care but also present some challenges. ing smart infusion pump technology. In April 2021, The Joint Commission released a Sen- Benefits tinel Event Alert on smart infusion pumps that Bi-directional smart infusion pumps • also contains useful strategies. remove the human factor from manually Smart infusion pumps are sophisticated programming the infusion pump computer systems that communicate within a • connect the pump channel, medication or- der, and patient network, using software and hardware de- • promote safe medication administration signed to send the exact amount of medica- based on the provider’s order tion at a precise rate to each patient. At the in- • facilitate consistent and timely documenta- terface between the infusion pump and the tion of each infusion in the patient’s elec- nurse, critical decisions are made, presump- tronic health record.
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