Health Robotics has embarked on a joint venture with U.S.-based i.v.SOFT to market, implement, and support the i.v.SOFT Workflow Engine and related software automation modules to hospitals and infusion centers in North America.

Health Robotics is a global supplier of intravenous medication preparation, compounding, and dispensing robots. i.v.SOFT is a private U.S. corporation that automates the control of I.V. medications in a closed-loop manner from the time the patient is scheduled for infusion to the point where IV administration is completed.

One of its software modules, OncoCube, has already been installed at the U.S. University of Colorado Hospital in Denver in addition to all-digital and totally integrated I.V. installations at La Maddalena Cancer Center in Palermo and Campus Biomedico University General Hospital in Rome.

While significant investments have already been made by North American vendors and hospitals applying technology in an attempt to reduce intravenous medication errors, these efforts have largely focused on the stand-alone phases of prescription (CPOE) and administration (smart infusion pumps), without an integrated approach to I.V. workflow and medication management, notes Werner Rainer, CEO of Health Robotics.

The I.V. room has been portrayed by some in the industry as a dark hole in the hospital where everything is "an impossible-to-differentiate clear liquid and things are out of control, he said.

While I.V. robotics solutions such as CytoCare and i.v.STATION are successfully addressing many of these issues, Health Robotics believes that anywhere between 10 to 35 percent of I.V.s are not compatible with robots, due to ampoules, non-standard elastomeric infusors, plastic bottles, sub-standard vial shapes, and the large variance in thousands of medical devices globally utilized for I.V. preparation and administration such as syringes, bags, bottles, tamper-evident caps, and needles.

"From the days of one mid-1990s-designed I.V. automation solution in the industry supporting only one brand and size of syringes, and one late-1990s robot supporting only one brand of bags and one brand of syringes, we have come a long way with CytoCare and i.v.STATION supporting multiple brands and syringe sizes, at least seven brands of bags and bottles each with five sizes, and 95 percent of the vials available in the market," said Health Robotics' Rainer.

Rainer said the i.v.SOFT Workflow Engine not only addresses the automation of I.V. preparation for patient doses not handled by robots, but it also integrates the communication processes of all clinicians involved in all phases of I.V. medication management, from I.V. case planning all the way to medication administration monitoring.