Smart Infusion Cells

The study performed by Rothchild et al. (2005) examining the use of smart infusion pumps to improve medication safety in critically ill patients was published in the Critical Care Medicine journal. The purpose of this randomized control trial was to take a closer look at medication errors, the frequency and adverse drug events that occur while using smart infusion pumps. “To Err is Human, patient safety was defined as freedom from accidental injury. Accidental injuries, also known as adverse events, results from interaction between potentially unsafe conditions at the systems level, also know as the blunt end, and individual performance at the sharp end. The medication administration process is a complex series including many steps” (Rothchild et al., 2005, p. 14). According to the authors, it was not uncommon to find medication errors associated with intravenous infusion pumps. …show more content…
Some of the systems are computerized physician order entry, pharmacy surveillance systems and smart infusion pumps. Smart pumps are in place to aid in the reduction of medication infusion errors. The authors conducted this research to review the impact of smart infusion pumps and medication errors. The authors conducted this study in a large academic center in the cardiac intensive care and cardiac step-down units. A total of 735 patients were reviewed and the pump log was downloaded to obtain data. The authors listed four different collection data periods. Every period was eight weeks in length. The down time in between each eight week period was used to collect the data from the smart pumps. This data was collected from the infusion pump computer. The goal was to evaluate if the smart infusion pumps would reduce medication error rates. Some data was lost in relation to early discharge and weekend discharges. These smart pumps were re-circulated and were unable to be