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Interoperability Preparedness: What Hospitals Can Do to Be Ready for Smart Pump-EMR Interoperability

Hospital Safety Insider, December 22, 2016

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Smart pump–EMR interoperability is the new standard of care for intravenous (IV) infusion therapy. The IV route of administration for medications often results in the most serious outcomes of medication errors (Hicks, Cousins, & Williams, 2003). Despite the many advances made by computerized prescriber order entry (CPOE), bar code medication administration (BCMA), and intelligent infusion safety systems or “smart pumps” (Pettus & Vanderveen, 2013), problems remain. A study at a major medical center found that 67% of smart pump IV infusions have one or more errors associated with their administration (Husch et al., 2005). Multiple studies have pointed to the need for smart pumps to be interfaced with other medication use information systems, such as an EMR, CPOE, BCMA, and pharmacy information system (PIS), to generate meaningful improvements in patient safety (Husch et al., 2005; Russell, Murkowski, & Scanlon, 2009; Schnock et al., 2015).

Infusion device–EMR interoperability
With infusion system–EMR interoperability, bar code scanning is used to trigger the transmission of physician-ordered, pharmacist-reviewed infusion parameters from the EMR to pre-populate the smart pump, reducing the number of error-prone keystrokes used in manual programming. Time-coded infusion data—such as rate changes, pauses, starts, and stops—flows back into the patient’s EMR in near real time.

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