Recent studies demonstrate that infusion pump to electronic health record (EHR) interoperability decreases medication errors while requiring aid from fewer nurses, which is why many organizations want these common hospital equipment items to interface with the EHR.¹

Unfortunately, the majority of IV pumps are siloed, meaning they cannot access critical information like patient identity or drug libraries.² “This can lead to patient safety issues,” said Roberta Bean, Chief Nursing Officer at San Luis Valley Health (SLVH), a regional health system in southern Colorado.

“As we were looking at purchasing new pumps, we were looking for ways to enhance patient safety–but we also wanted to improve the nursing workflow,” she explained. “With the old pumps, nurses always had to go back to the patient’s chart to document start and stop times. In the ICU setting, for example, if the nurses were working with titrating hemodynamic drips, they would have to go between the pump and the EHR to make near-constant updates. It takes a lot of extra time.”

Since implementing an admission, discharge, and transfer (ADT) interface on its Ivenix infusion pumps, however, the SLVH nursing team has been able to connect the patient identifier within the infusion event database with the goal of enriching the patient awareness data available to the team.

“Our nurses love it. They can now pull the patient names into the pump. They can pull the patient right up in the room, and then that information stays on the pump in that room. They can pull up the drug library,” she said. “It allows our nurses to identify the patient at the pump for an additional check and also provides visibility into who is receiving what drug for the pharmacy and the rest of the care team.”

The patient awareness resulting from the Ivenix/ADT interface combination has given SLVH visibility to previously inaccessible infusion status as they move toward full interoperability between smart pumps and the EHR, according to Bean. The pharmacy department can now closely monitor replenishment timing for expensive medications. This allows for just-in-time compounding of these costly drugs, which may provide financial benefits. But Bean is most appreciative of how the interface helps the health system support continuous quality improvement.

“We can see the full story of when infusion starts and stops for a specific patient,” said Bean. “I can also get reports from the system that give me important information. I can slice and dice the data to see where issues may be occurring, drill down to understand what’s happening, and then offer retraining if necessary.”

Bean added that SLVH, as a small rural organization, was happy to find a system that was easy to roll out and includes these features to help them make their way toward full interoperability.

“This is just the first step, and it’s been an important bridge that has helped set us up for success,” she concluded. “We are really looking forward to taking the next steps to make our pumps and EHR fully interoperable so we can continue to support our patient safety goals.”

*The opinions expressed in this article are the author's own and may not reflect the view of Fresenius Kabi.

Please see a full list of warnings and cautions associated with this device here.

References

1. Joseph R, Lee SW, et al. Impact of interoperability of smart infusion pumps and an electronic medical record in critical care. Am J Health Syst Pharm. 2020 ;77(15):1231-1236. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32620966/
2. Zaborowski KB. Efficacy of smart infusion pumps from a nursing perspective. Applied Research Projects 57. https://doi.org/10.21007/chp.hiim.0057