Designing a Simple, Safe, and Effective IV Bag

Clinicians need tools to make their tasks less complicated. Patients need care that is safe and effective. And everyone needs healthcare to be cost effective. That means the infusion systems supporting healthcare must be designed with these three objectives in mind. This design philosophy must extend — in fact, should especially extend — to the IV bag. Likewise, the bag design should complement an infusion system to make infusion therapy easy to administer and manage as well as safe for patients.

Let’s start with the color of the bag. Pharmacists need to inspect contents and nurses need to be able to check fluid levels at a glance, so why not make the bag transparent? Evaluating the volume remaining and the color and clarity of the fluid should be simple and quick.

IV bags should also be made from nontoxic materials. PVC, better known as “vinyl,” has been a common material used to make IV bags. It’s sturdy, but to make it flexible, PVC contains DEHP (di-2-ethylhexyl-phthalate). Unfortunately, DEHP has been shown to be a reproductive toxicant and it can leach out of the PVC, representing a health risk for patients — particularly pediatric patients.¹ Beyond safety concerns for the patient, because incineration of PVC bags creates byproducts like the highly carcinogenic chemical dioxin, they’re challenging to dispose of properly.²

Safety goes beyond the materials used to construct an IV bag. For instance, ports should be self-sealing to help prevent leaks that could occur after removing the needle or spike, which reduces the risk of hazardous exposure. And they should have easy break-off caps so the bag will show obvious tamper evidence and potential contamination. Ports also need to be semi-rigid to reduce the risk of needle sticks during drug injection, and they should be different colors so a clinician can easily identify their flow and function to help prevent errors.

Fresenius Kabi took all of this into account when designing the freeflex^® IV bag to help clinicians deliver infusion care safely and efficiently. And when freeflex is used in concert with the Ivenix Infusion System, the result truly is game changing.

For example, the Ivenix Infusion System can be programmed to continue infusion until the secondary bag is empty. When this option is enabled by the nurse, the system detects air and stops immediately when there’s no volume remaining in the intermittent fluid bag (piggyback) and resumes the primary infusion. This means the nurse is not unnecessarily addressing a pump alarm, patients receive all of their medication, and pharmacists don’t have to account for the overfill volume that goes unused.

The Ivenix Infusion System detects air bubbles of nearly any size and will continue to provide consistent, precise delivery of medication. You can change the bag height, administer drugs of different viscosities and pressures, and even move the pump from a pole to a bed for travel and the rate and flow won’t deviate from the clinician-entered setting.*

And with a full-color, easy-to-read touchscreen with guided workflows and the ability to preprogram the infusion with standby mode, the Ivenix Infusion System makes it easy to set up, administer, and monitor infusion therapy no matter how chaotic the clinical environment may become.

Together, freeflex and the Ivenix Infusion System provide a safe, simple, and effective way to deliver infusion therapy. It’s what both patients and clinicians deserve.

*The accuracy of the Ivenix LVP is +/-5% in all clinical conditions.

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References

1. Shea KM. Pediatric exposure and potential toxicity of phthalate plasticizers. Pediatrics. 2003;111:1467-1474.
2. Zhang M, Buekens A, Jiang X, Li X. Dioxins and polyvinylchloride in combustion and fires. Waste Manage Res. 2015;33(7):630-643.