Use of Patient Identifiers on Smart Pumps to improve safety

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Tue, 01/14/2020 - 18:55
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Forrest Shirkey
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Joined: 10/27/2017 - 19:16
Use of Patient Identifiers on Smart Pumps to improve safety

Question: How have hospitals worked around possible HIPAA violation issues when using the Patient ID function on smart pumps?

Background: We recently pursued a path to require RNs to enter the MR# in the Patient ID on our smart pumps (Alaris), but were stopped due to a concern over a possible HIPAA violation should a smart pump "go missing" (leave the hospital).

Other facilities who have interoperability (bidirectional communication between eMAR and the smart pump) would theoretically have the same issue.

Anyone out there have any experience with getting this feature through the gauntlet of IT security approvals and Risk Management/Legal Dept. ?

We truly believe this data helps us look retrospectively at alerts and improve patient care/safety, our inability to use this function built in to the pumps is devastating.

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