IV System Designed to Eliminate Drug Errors

The system was introduced at the National Teaching Institute of the American Asssociation of Critical Care Nurses in Atlanta (GA, USA).

The most common sources of errors in IV drug administration involve either the wrong patient, the wrong drug, or the wrong dosage. The new IV system is intended to eliminate these errors by safety measures that affect labeling, patient-medication matching, and infusion pumps. The system, called Horizon Outlook IV, generates a bar code label on the IV medication bag. At bedside, caregivers must scan a bar code on their badge to verify authorization, scan the patient's identification bar code to identify the patient, scan the bar code on the medication to confirm it matches the patient, and scan the infusion parameters on the IV bag to program the infusion bag. If the bar codes correlate, the infusion pump will confirm that the information is correct and infusion can be initiated.

The Horizon Outlook IV is the product of B. Braun Medical, Inc. (Bethlehem, PA, USA). The system incorporates DoseScan technology with open architecture that enables it to interface with any hospital or pharmacy information management system. Hospitals without a pharmacy system can use a software package to generate bar codes.

"Because it integrates with the existing pharmacy information system, the Horizon Outlook IV system can automatically accommodate any drug on the hospital formulary,” said Sheila Kempf, vice president of marketing at Braun. "The system is not limited to a specific number of preprogrammed drugs.”




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