How will this change benefit nursing and improve patient outcomes?

So many benefits!

 

Being able to program an IV infusion pump at a specific rate and volume over a certain time has made infusion therapy so much more convenient, but adding this extra perk, will just be phenomenal. 

Cantwell and McDermott (2016) mention that the current lack of interoperability can put the safety of our patients in jeopardy, weaken the quality of their care and its outcomes, as well as lead to provider fatigue. This change can bring our organization many developments. Our nurses will be notified of drug dose limits, catch any potential medication errors, and standardize the IV medication administration procedures. Being able to scan the nurse and patient identification barcode, and the medication will confirm successful administration and completion. It will close the loop. The risk of administering an intravenous medication that has been discontinued is reduced due to this extra communication. Receiving notifications to our mobile phones about IV alarms will help improve our patient satisfaction. But in order to be fully prepared, we must set a clear plan. Evidence shows that nurses have learned that without careful planning, new technologies can create more work and complicate any existing workflows, or create new kinds of errors (Harrington, 2018). 

Research shows that some organizations already use this functionality (minus the IV beeping alarm notifications to the nurse), and it has been very successful. Achieving interoperability is no small action, and requires effort on both the business side of the healthcare organization, and the technical side of the operations (Cantewell & McDermott, 2016). At Lancaster General Health, quality was improved through all specific data that included patients, IV pumps, nurses, and other meaningful data (Harrington, 2018). Another organization, Children's Hospitals and Clinics in Minnesota, resulted in a major reduction in adverse events, as large as 70% (Harrington, 2018). The ultimate goal is to connect and monitor all systems that include infusion information, that would automatically capture any critical events that require immediate attention from the nurse. 

Please click this link to see how one particular IV pump company manages their interoperability with electronic medical records.

Current Alaris EMR Interoperability

Have I convinced you yet ⁇😏