Smiths Medical Partners With Parkview Health to Enhance Patient and Clinician Safety

Parkview Health’s integration of the Smiths Medical PharmGuard^® Infusion Management System enables smart pump programming and auto documentation to improve safety.

MINNEAPOLIS--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Smiths Medical, a global medical device manufacturer, announced today that Parkview Health, based in Fort Wayne, Indiana., has integrated its PharmGuard^® Infusion Management System with its electronic health record system to establish bi-directional interoperability across all hospital in its health system. Connected through their Epic electronic health record (EHR), this integration will enable smart pump programming and auto documentation to improve patient safety.

Smart pump programming and bi-directional interoperability simplifies nursing workflow and improves medication administration by allowing EHR to communicate directly with an infusion pump at the bedside. Clinician orders can be sent from the EHR to the pump, providing an extra level of safety for patients and care teams. This enables infusion program settings to be automatically checked against the EHR to ensure the correct medication, concentration, rate, dose and duration have been selected for the patient.

Interoperability can eliminate 75% of infusion-related medication errors.¹ In addition, it can help to enhance clinical workflow and ensure timely and accurate documentation of all medication in the EHR.

“Safety is a top priority at Parkview Health and, by implementing this technology, we are pleased to add another layer of safety, accuracy and efficiency for our patients and care teams,” said Rebecca Mahuren, medication safety integration nurse, Parkview Regional Medical Center.

PharmGuard^® Infusion Management System also reduces the number of steps a nurse must complete to program a pump, allowing them to spend more time with patients and less time with technology. This functionality helps nurses and other medical professionals to easily, quickly and accurately deliver the medication patients need.

“At Smiths Medical, we are dedicated to constantly improving both clinician and patient safety by connecting care, whether through our infusion pump systems, our hypodermics or our ventilators, in what continues to be an extremely demanding environment for all due to the global COVID-19 pandemic,” said Dr. Wilson P. Constantine, president of the Americas, Smiths Medical. “The successful EHR integration with Parkview demonstrates our ongoing commitment to enabling patient safety by reducing administration errors and delivering patient flow automation, which can free up clinicians to spend more time with their patients.”

About Smiths Medical

A leading supplier of specialized medical devices and equipment for global markets, focusing on the medication delivery, vital care and safety devices market segments. For more information, visit www.smiths-medical.com.

About Smiths Group

A global technology company that has been operating for nearly 170 years, delivering products and services for the medical technology, security and defense, general industrial, energy and space & commercial aerospace markets worldwide. Smiths Group plc employs c. 23,000 colleagues in over 50 countries and is listed on the London Stock Exchange. For more information visit www.smiths.com.

Epic is a registered trademark of Epic Systems Corporation.

Reference

1. ECRI Institute, Infusion pump integration; why it is needed and what are the challenges? Health Devices, July 2013, 42 (7): 210-221.

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