Analysis of infusions pump usage data to reduce drug errors and enhance maintenance

An infusion pump is a medical device that automatically administers set amounts of drugs into a patient intravenously. Drug errors occur when an incorrect dose or dose rate is programmed. To avoid such errors, a drug library is created providing dose limits for every drug. “Smart” infusion pumps provide a tracking system, saving all pump usage data, messages and errors in a database. A study on “smart” infusion pumps indicates that drug errors and drug events were detected by the drug library; however, poor compliance to the library did not reduce drug error rates if users failed to adjust dose based on the drug library. Research will be conducted, leveraging the data provided by “smart” infusion pumps to improve compliance, and in turn reduce drug errors and associated complications. In addition, research will be conducted to use infusion pump data to enhance maintenance schedules and potentially predict device failures.

Faculty Supervisor:

Adrian Chan

Student:

Partner:

Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario

Discipline:

Engineering

Sector:

Health and Related Sciences & Technology

University:

Carleton University

Program: