Medication administration and management system and method

Abstract

A system, method and computer program for programming a medical device to administer a medication to a patient includes the medical device, a scanner that may be associated with a point of care (POC) system, and a medication management unit (MMU). A computer in the POC system can directly program the medical device with the permission of the MMU after a full “five rights” check or the “right patient” check can be delayed until after the pump program is downloaded. Other workflows are disclosed for programming the medical device in manual, semi-automatic and automatic modes, with safety checks incorporated at various points.

Description

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS [0001] This application claims the priority of U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 60 / 786,599, filed Mar. 28, 2006, which is incorporated by reference herein in its entirety.BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION [0002] The present invention relates to the field of delivering medication to patients, more particularly to an integrated system for maximizing patient safety and caregiver productivity for medication delivery. [0003] Modern medical care often involves the use of medical pump devices to deliver fluids and / or fluid medicine to patients. Medical pumps permit the controlled delivery of fluids to a patient, and such pumps have largely replaced gravity flow systems, primarily due to the pump's much greater accuracy in delivery rates and dosages, and due to the possibility for flexible yet controlled delivery schedules. However, modern medical devices, including medical pumps, can be complicated and time-consuming for caregivers to program. Medic...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0011] The MMU translates the simple infusion rate of the delivery order into delivery programming code or information suitable for automatically programming the designated pump and further checks the delivery order and delivery programming code against a variety of drug library parameters (including but not limited to hard and / or soft limits for drug delivery rates, dose, volume, duration, route and site of administration), patient-specific safety factors, and clinical decision support rules including drug compatibility and drug-drug interactions. The MMU can be configured by the user at the MMU console or client workstation to monitor the status of the pump and the infusion (including alarms, event logs, and pump user interface inputs), generate reports, and control the distribution of drug library and operating software code updates to one or more pumps. A drug library editor (DLE) deployed as a part of the MMU, its console, or on a separate computer (DLE client workstation), enables the user to import, export and edit whole drug libraries and individual drug library values to control and customize a drug library according to hospital preferences.

[0012] The MMU and / or the POC system saves the caregiver time by automatically populating or programming data entry fields in the pump that previously had to be entered manually. The medication management system of this invention enhances patient safety by minimizing manual entries. The system also enhances patient safety by screening drug delivery orders for conformance with established hospital practices, expert or clinical decision support rules and recommendations before, or more preferably immediately before, the pump begins to execute the order. The caregiver is provided with a least one and preferably several opportunities to catch a medication error before it happens. The caregiver can confirm the order at the point of care (POC) system and / or before starting the infusion at the pump. The system is flexible enough to permit human interventions and overrides, and tracks such events for documentation, reporting, benchmarking and trouble-shooting purposes.

Problems solved by technology

However, modern medical devices, including medical pumps, can be complicated and time-consuming for caregivers to program.

Medical facilities struggle to provide appropriate caregiver staffing levels and training while holding down the cost of medical care.

Human errors in pump programming and other medication errors can have adverse or even deadly consequences for the patient.

Medication errors, which are sometimes referred to as adverse drug events (ADE), can increase the length of hospital stay and the cost of medical care for the patients involved or their healthcare insurance carrier.

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