Smiths Medical announces that Ft. Wayne, Ind.-based Parkview Health has integrated its PharmGuard Infusion Management System with its electronic health record system to establish bi-directional interoperability across all hospitals in its health system. Connected through their Epic electronic health record (EHR), this integration will enable smart pump programming and auto documentation to improve patient safety.
Smart pump programming and bi-directional interoperability simplifies nursing workflow and improves medication administration by allowing EHR to communicate directly with an infusion pump at the bedside. Clinician orders can be sent from the EHR to the pump, providing an extra level of safety for patients and care teams. This enables infusion program settings to be automatically checked against the EHR to ensure the correct medication, concentration, rate, dose and duration have been selected for the patient.
Interoperability can eliminate 75% of infusion-related medication errors.In addition, it can help to enhance clinical workflow and ensure timely and accurate documentation of all medication in the EHR.
“Safety is a top priority at Parkview Health and, by implementing this technology, we are pleased to add another layer of safety, accuracy and efficiency for our patients and care teams,” says Rebecca Mahuren, medication safety integration nurse, Parkview Regional Medical Center.
PharmGuard Infusion Management System also reduces the number of steps a nurse must complete to program a pump, allowing them to spend more time with patients and less time with technology. This functionality helps clinicians to easily, quickly and accurately deliver the medication patients need.
“At Smiths Medical, we are dedicated to constantly improving both clinician and patient safety by connecting care, whether through our infusion pump systems, our hypodermics or our ventilators, in what continues to be an extremely demanding environment for all due to the global COVID-19 pandemic,” says Dr. Wilson P. Constantine, president of the Americas, Smiths Medical. “The successful EHR integration with Parkview demonstrates our ongoing commitment to enabling patient safety by reducing administration errors and delivering patient flow automation, which can free up clinicians to spend more time with their patients.”
