WellSpan Health, a four-hospital system based in central Pennsylvania, announced the successful implementation of Alaris System smart infusion pumps today across its care centers. WellSpan York is now the first hospital ever to simultaneously go-live with new infusion devices and bi-directional interoperability between the infusion device and the EHR.
The devices offer two-way interoperability with the hospitals' EHR and are designed to help reduce the risk of harmful and expensive IV medication programming errors at patient bedside. The system allows for bi-directional communication from EHR to device for both syringe pumps and large volume infusions.
"WellSpan Health has been a leader in leveraging technology to promote patient safety," Kris O'Shea, vice president of nursing practice and clinical informatics for WellSpan Health, said in statement. "Smart infusion pumps provide safety, but interoperability provides the next level of reliability. Not only does infusion pump integration to the EHR help improve patient safety, but it also documents all infusions back into the EHR, which saves a lot of time and administrative work for our nurses. And that is time that is invested back into direct patient care."
The infusion pumps are capable of being wirelessly programmed with infusion orders directly from a patient's EHR, rather than requiring manual programming. After a patient's ID band is scanned, the medication is automatically administered based on the verified physician order from the EHR.