WellSpan Health, CareFusion announce successful implementation of Alaris System in WellSpan hospitals

WellSpan Health and CareFusion, a BD company (NYSE: BDX), today announced the successful implementation of the Alaris^® System across all four WellSpan hospitals, with WellSpan York Hospital becoming the first hospital ever to simultaneously go-live with new infusion devices and bi-directional interoperability between the infusion device and the electronic health record (EHR).

Infusion device interoperability connects the health system's Alaris System smart infusion pumps with the hospital's EHR and is designed to help reduce the risk of harmful and costly intravenous (IV) medication programming errors at the patient bedside. The solution enables bi-directional communication between the infusion pump and the EHR for both syringe pumps and large volume infusions.

"WellSpan Health has been a leader in leveraging technology to promote patient safety," said Kris O'Shea, RN, MS, NEA-BC, vice president, Nursing Practice and Clinical Informatics, WellSpan Health. "Smart infusion pumps provide safety, but interoperability provides the next level of reliability. Not only does infusion pump integration to the EHR help improve patient safety, but it also documents all infusions back into the EHR, which saves a lot of time and administrative work for our nurses. And that is time that is invested back into direct patient care."

The Alaris System can be wirelessly pre-populated with infusion order parameters directly from the hospital's EHR. Instead of manually programming the pump using the keypad, the pump is pre-populated with the patient's medication order after scanning the barcodes on the patient's ID band, on the medication to be administered and on the smart pump. Automatically programming the pump with the patient's medication order from the verified physician order in the EHR helps ensure accurate IV medication administration and documentation, and reduces opportunities for human error.

With bi-directional communication, infusion data automatically flows back into the EHR, resulting in the programmed infusion order parameters being sent back into the patient's medical record in near real-time. Automated IV medication administration documentation from the Alaris System to the EHR gives health care providers more timely and accurate infusion data to aid in clinical decision-making.

The interoperability of smart medical devices and HIT systems has become critically important, as the ability to automatically capture and manage patient data plays an increasing role in improving patient safety, staff productivity and financial performance. Most importantly, the added safety and efficiency of the new systems at WellSpan Health allows nurses to focus more attention on what is most important for everyone—caring for the patient.