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Infusion Insight: Every Day is Patient Safety Day
Ivenix was proud to support the National Patient Safety Foundation last week in recognizing National Patient Safety Awareness Week. The campaign, United for Patient Safety, highlighted actions to take to create a safer healthcare environment. Everyone has a role in patient safety. Medical device and healthcare technology companies are not immune to the call to action. The FDA has listed a number of error-prone medical devices that “…have clear potential for serious harm”. One such medical device is the IV smart pump. Although smart pumps have reduced the incidence of errors over the years, data has shown that errors occur in 60% or more of IV medication administrations1.
A fundamental reason for infusion pump safety issues is the underlying legacy devices with antiquated designs. A recent survey of 400 nurses interviewed one year after their facility implemented smart pump technology found that 32% did not trust the smart pumps any more than they had trusted their traditional pumps2. This suggests that current infusion pump interfaces have not been designed to be sufficiently user-centered and error-tolerant.
An article in this month’s Nursing2017 used the term “design innovation stagnation” to describe the lack of innovation with today’s IV smart pumps. Suggestions were shared to address the limitations of current smart pumps, including a more intuitive and less complex user interface, use of technologies that clinicians are more familiar with – such as touchscreens – to make interactions easier and improve the reliability of pumps3.
Ivenix stands united with healthcare professionals and patients to advocate for change with IV smart pumps. Future innovation is necessary in order to attain safety, effectiveness and efficiency. Every patient deserves it. Let’s make patient safety a priority, every day!