Infusion Control Feedback for Early Medication Delivery Failure Detection
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current infusion pump systems fail to detect medication delivery failures such as line occlusions, leaks, or kinks, leading to inaccurate dosing and delayed alarms, which can hinder patient treatment.
Innovation Solution
An external infusion control device that connects to infusion devices and sensors, using algorithms to monitor biometric and medication data, adjusting medication delivery to maintain therapeutic ranges and providing early alerts for potential failures.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If current infusion pump detection methods are used, then occluded lines are detected and produce alarms, but leakage, partial occlusions, and kinks are not detected leading to inaccurate dosing
Solution Approach 1:
The system continuously monitors the physiological property and compares the actual value against the expected therapeutic range, creating a feedback loop that detects delivery failures when deviations occur. This enables reliable detection of various failure modes including leaks, partial occlusions, and kinks without requiring complex mechanical sensors in the infusion line.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent uses the patient's physiological property as an intermediary indicator to infer the status of medication delivery. Instead of directly monitoring the infusion line for various failure modes, the system measures the physiological response and works backwards to detect delivery problems, simplifying the detection system while improving reliability.
2Reliability
If infusion pumps only alarm for occluded lines, then simple occlusions are detected, but other delivery failures like leaks and kinks remain undetected
Solution Approach 1:
The system establishes a feedback mechanism that continuously compares the actual physiological property against the expected therapeutic range calculated from pharmacokinetic profiles. This feedback loop provides comprehensive information about delivery status by detecting any deviation from expected outcomes, regardless of the specific failure mode.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent replaces mechanical detection systems (pressure sensors, flow sensors in the infusion line) with a physiological monitoring system. By substituting direct mechanical measurement of infusion status with indirect physiological measurement, the system can detect all types of delivery failures including leaks, partial occlusions, and kinks that mechanical systems miss.
3Loss of time
If the system monitors physiological properties continuously, then delivery failures are detected early, but system complexity and computational requirements increase
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary calculations of the expected therapeutic range and expected trend before monitoring begins. By pre-computing what the physiological property should be based on pharmacokinetic profiles and planned dosing, the system can quickly compare actual measurements against these pre-established expectations, enabling early detection without complex real-time computational models.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent transforms the monitoring approach from tracking absolute physiological values to tracking deviations from expected trends. By changing the parameter from raw physiological measurement to deviation magnitude and direction, the system simplifies the detection logic while maintaining early alarm capability. The system alerts when the deviation exceeds predetermined thresholds, providing early warning without requiring complex continuous optimization algorithms.
Data Source
AI summary
The disclosed device, system and method manages medication delivery failures. An effective therapeutic range of a patient physiological property is determined based on a pharmacokinetic profile of a medication. During an administration of the medication to the patient, an expected trend in the measured physiological property is determined based on sensor data, the pharmacokinetic profile of the medication, a dose of the medication provided to the patient, and the at least one physical property of the patient, and an infusion device is caused to adjust the dose of the medication to cause the physiological property to follow the expected trend. Responsive to determining that a current trend in the physiological property has deviated from the expected trend, and will fall outside the effective therapeutic range within a predetermined time period, a delivery failure is determined and an alarm is provided.