Bottom line question to the group:

- has your institution reviewed and/or approved the usage of non-BD syringes for your smart infusion pumps?

More details below:

In the last few years, there have been recalls for both smart infusion pumps and syringes issued by the FDA. At our institution, our main smart infusion pump used is the BD Alaris system. Recently, BD Alaris pumps received full 510k FDA approval. These new pumps now have a more restrictive syringe and PCA compatibility list.

A NICU at one of our hospitals brought forward the concern that the 1 ml and 3 ml BD syringes are the same barrel size, so when they are inserted into the pump, the autodetect feature (Alaris syringe pump) cannot tell the difference and the nurse must manually select the syringe size. Due to the label on these smaller syringes, it is often hard to tell which size the syringe actually is.

Apparently mistakes/errors have happened more than once, and I wanted to see if anyone else has had this issue or any successful mitigation strategies?

Thank you

Our system is currently in the process of consolidating 11 individual Alaris pump libraries into 1 system library. We still have independent IV administration guidelines that dictate areas in the hospital that certain medications can be given and monitoring along with it.

Have any of you consolidated your IV administration guidelines as a system? What parameters did you use to broadly define areas within the IV administration guideline that can be expanded to other hospitals or in times of high census where patients are in hallways.

Smart pump/DERS question regarding HUMATE-P (Antihemophilic Factor/von Willebrand Factor Complex).

1. Do you have HUMATE-P built into your drug library? If yes, how? Is it built as an IVPB or syringe?
2. What is your process for nursing administration of HUMATE-P and other factors?

Does anyone have any best practices around ensuring 3-mL syringes are used to prepare 3-mL NICU doses?

We’ve had incidents of 3-mL doses dispensed in 5-mL syringes. The ordered rate was less than 0.1 mL/hr. Because the Alaris syringe pump cannot deliver a flow rate lower than 0.1 mL/hr from a 5-mL syringe, the doses had to be sent back to be prepared a second time in 3-mL syringes.

We are thinking about including syringes as components to be scanned when Dispense Prepping NICU mixtures in Epic but are running into some workflow challenges with that.

Hello everyone,

In the past ~ 60 hours our organization has experienced three events of rapid over-infusion of a medication utilizing BD/CareFusion Alaris infusion pumps. Initial investigations indicate that the pumps were programmed correctly according to the medication orders and a crosscheck with Epic/Alaris Interop. Thankfully all three patients have avoided serious harm.

There is suspicion for a pump malfunction, which is being escalated. We are working with the vendor and implementing mitigation strategies across the system.

We are a small pediatric hospital in NY and having issues with programming standard concentrations with Alaris. I was wondering if someone is willing to help us out, please.

We are trying to program standard concentrations like gentamicin 4mg/mL and Cefepime 40mg/mL in Alaris but according to Alaris the only way to program these weight-based pediatric entries is to use __ __ blank entries with limits programmed in the background.

Hello,

I'm interested in learning about other people's experiences as it relates to Alaris Pump Modules and their Estimated Useful Life.

We utilize Alaris Pump Module 8100 and I am trying to obtain information regarding when we should look to update/replace our existing hardware. We have been unable to obtain clear guidelines on this from our BD Carefusion reps.

1. Has your organization considered the use of the Alaris pump syringe adapter infusion set / or are you currently using it?

2. If you are using it, was infection control approval obtained? Are the sets used for multiple doses or single use only?

3. If you have considered it but decided not to use it, what was the reason?

4. If you don't use it, would you consider recommending use by your organization? See attached images.

Thank you,
Vidya Saldivar
Medication Safety Specialist
Houston Methodist Hospital

Hi all,