Monday, 2 Nov, 2009
Smiths Medical has partnered with the leading enteral syringe companies to allow Medfusion® 3500 pumps to now recognize NeoMed®, Baxa® NeoThrive™, and Vygon® enteral syringes, which will help reduce the risk of IV and enteral misconnections.
An enteral misconnection is an inadvertent connection between an enteral feeding system and a non-enteral system such as an intravascular line. Serious patient harm, including death, can occur if fluids, medications or nutritional formulas intended for administration into the gastrointestinal tract are administered via the wrong route.( 1)
Infusion pumps can be connected to either enteral or intravascular lines to deliver medication to patients. Adding enteral syringe data to PharmGuard® v5 software for Medfusion® 3500 pumps allows clinicians to meet Joint Commission requirements for enteral feedings (1), differentiate their patients’ IV and enteral lines ( 2) , and help meet their facility’s needs by providing safe and accurate enteral delivery.
NeoMed®, Baxa® NeoThrive™, and Vygon® enteral syringes contain unique tips that will not connect to standard IV Luers and have orange or purple coloring for easy enteral identification. Seven of their enteral syringes will be recognized by PharmGuard® software for Medfusion® 3500 pumps.
Medfusion® 3500 with PharmGuard® v5 is only available in the U.S.A. and Canada.
Terri Servais
Marketing Communications Manager
Smiths Medical North America
1 Guenter, Peggi, PhD., R.N., C.N.S.N., et al. Enteral Feeding Misconnections : A Consortium Position Statement. The Joint Commission Journal on Quality and Patient Safety. May 2008; Volume 34 Number 5.
2 Abstract: Enteral feeding set connectors and adapters. Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation. ANSI/AAMI ID54: 1996/©2005.
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