Ivenix develops groundbreaking infusion management platform to transform infusion pump market

Ivenix, Inc. (formerly Fluidnet Corporation) today announced that it is developing a groundbreaking infusion management platform designed to transform the infusion pump market by helping to improve patient safety and clinical workflow efficiency. The Ivenix Infusion Management System combines three core elements designed to deliver infusion therapy with unprecedented ease and precision:

• A Simple User Experience demonstrated by a large, intuitive, smartphone-like user interface that is designed to reduce programming and interpretation errors, empowering users to administer medications in less time and with fewer pump interactions.
• State-of-the-Art Information Technology where the latest information is available at the place and time decisions are made, ensuring immediate, secure access to patient-specific infusion and pump management information from any computer or mobile device, regardless of the level of electronic medical record (EMR) integration.
• A Fundamentally New Pump Technology that will set a new standard in safety and performance by measuring and adjusting flow rate accurately in real time, providing automated delivery of secondary infusions, elimination of air-in-line, delivery of infusions independent of the height of the medication bag, and best-in-class flow continuity especially meaningful at low flow rates.

Infusion pump technology has been slow to progress despite the increasing complexity of drug dosing regimens, demand for EMR integration, and significant, widely reported patient safety issues. Ivenix is directly addressing a call to action to move from smart pumps to intelligent infusion systems by designing a solution from the ground up with the scalability, flexibility, functionality, ease-of-use and affordability needed to support the changing needs of the nation's healthcare delivery system and inevitable transition from hospital to home.

"The incremental addition of IT capabilities to pumps has been a positive development in the infusion pump market over the past several years," said Colin J. Foster, Chairman of the Board at Ivenix. "But we believe that a more comprehensive approach is required to transform the infusion pump industry and significantly improve the safety of infusion delivery. Presenting information to users in a way that is familiar to them; making patient-specific information and analytics available when and where it is needed, with or without EMR integration; and delivering medications precisely under various clinical conditions – it is this combination of simplicity, intelligence, and adaptive pump technology that is needed to set the next standard in infusion management."

A Complete Focus on Addressing Safety and Performance Gaps

The Ivenix Infusion Management System includes a lightweight pump, information system, and a proprietary administration set that is now in final production design.

The pump features a large, intuitive, color touchscreen user interface designed to reduce the risk of user errors. Interactions are clear and unnecessary steps are eliminated, simplifying programming and training for new users.

The information system is a secure, wireless, web-based architecture, providing a broad array of patient-specific infusion information and analytics out-of-the-box without integration, while easily enabling open, pluggable, and scalable integration with the EMR and other information systems. The infusion device itself is designed to be highly intelligent and incorporates many elements of an information system within it. This will allow the device to interact with the larger system, as well as operate as a standalone device. This transformational architecture also will allow hospitals to leverage valuable patient infusion data at each level of integration, supporting quality and cost-capture initiatives.

With a pneumatic pumping mechanism that measures flow and automatically adjusts to maintain flow accuracy, the pump offers flow continuity even at low flow rates, particularly important for critical medications and in special patient populations. Because the pump mechanism delivers gravity independent accuracy, there is no need to worry about the height of the medication bag relative to the pump. The pump mechanism also addresses clinical efficiency issues by automating secondary infusions, minimizing nuisance alarms, and eliminating the need for calibration.

Why a New Infusion Management System Is Critical

Infusion pump technology hasn't kept pace with health IT and technology advances in healthcare delivery. Most of the core technology in use today was developed years before the introduction of modern, compact computing platforms, or the use of cloud storage, and when only 1.5 percent of the nation's hospitals had implemented a comprehensive EMR.

From January 1, 2005 through December 31, 2009, more than 56,000 adverse events and 710 deaths associated with infusion devices were reported to the FDA—more than for any other medical technology. During this period, there were 87 pump recalls. Patient safety issues and recalls carry significant financial implications: infusion-related adverse drug events add more than $2 billion to annual healthcare costs in the United States.

Infusion related errors can be attributed largely to a lack of integration between the pump and hospital IT systems and use errors in programming the device. A recent report by the ECRI Institute suggests that integration between infusion pumps and hospital information systems could mitigate 75 percent or more of reported safety issues.

The Ivenix Infusion Management System has not yet been reviewed by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).