The Clinical Services Journal takes a look at how technology developments are helping to reduce the possibility of patient-safety incidents in infusion pumps, which are ubiquitous devices in the healthcare sector.
One of the most widely used devices across the healthcare sector is the infusion pump – to deliver medication, fluid, and nutrients at precisely controlled rates, intravenously, subcutaneously or by epidural or enteral means.
With many thousands of infusion devices in use in hospitals and in the community, there is an identifiable mortality and morbidity associated with their use. In the five years between 2005 and 2010 the Medication and Healthcare products Regulation Agency (MHRA), which is responsible for regulating all medicines and medical devices in the UK, investigated 1,085 incidents involving infusion pumps. In 68% of the reports no cause was established and 21% were attributed to user error, including maintenance damage and contamination problems. The remaining 11% of incidents were due to device-related issues such as performance problems, degradation, inadequate quality assurance and design and labelling. The majority of serious problems were found to relate to over-infusion of drugs, suggesting that user-error, or tampering with the device, is the most significant contributing factor.
In December 2013, the MHRA produced an updated Device Bulletin on infusion systems to raise awareness of best-practice with respect to the purchase, management and use of infusion devices.1
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