Children's Hospitals and Clinics of Minnesota Receives 2014 Intelligent Hospital Award

SAN DIEGO and KANSAS CITY, Mo., Feb. 18, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- The RFID in Healthcare Consortium (RHCC) and IntelligentHospital.org today announced that Children's Hospitals and Clinics of Minnesota has received a 2014 Intelligent Hospital Award for "Improving the Patient Experience: Care and Safety" for its infusion pump interoperability solution collaboration with CareFusion CFN and Cerner CERN.  

The solution connects the hospital's Alaris^® System smart infusion pumps with the electronic health record (EHR) Cerner Millennium^®  through CareAware Infusion Suite^TM[1] and is designed to help reduce the risk of harmful and costly intravenous (IV) medication programming errors at the patient bedside. Children's Hospitals and Clinics of Minnesota is the first pediatric hospital system in the U.S. to enable bi-directional communication between the infusion pump and the EHR for both syringe pumps and large volume infusions.

"We are honored to receive an Intelligent Hospital Award for Improving the Patient Experience, but it is even more rewarding to know that this technology is improving patient safety in our hospitals every day," said Bobbie Carroll, senior director of patient safety and informatics at Children's Hospitals and Clinics of Minnesota. "Since we've implemented this solution, we have seen a 57 percent increase in smart pump drug safety parameters utilization, combined with a 37 percent decline in safety learning reports related to medication administration events."

The most common and dangerous types of medication errors are made in administering medications intravenously—especially when the patient is a child[2]. The error is most often because of how the medication is administered[3], and the dosage and timing of the medication must be calibrated precisely using calculations largely based on the patient's weight. This creates greater risk for children than adults because of their smaller size.

Utilizing CareAware^® Device Connectivity and Alaris^® Connectivity Services, the Alaris System can be wirelessly pre-populated with precise infusion order parameters directly from the Cerner Millennium 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.

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, clinical outcomes, staff productivity and financial performance. Most importantly, the added safety and efficiency of the new systems at Children's of Minnesota allows nurses to focus more attention on what is most important for everyone—caring for the patient. 

Children's Hospitals and Clinics of Minnesota will be presenting key findings from their infusion pump interoperability solution at the Intelligent Hospital Pavilion of the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) Annual Conference and Exhibition, being held Feb. 23-27 in Orlando.

For more information, visit http://www.carefusion.com/emrinteroperability and https://www.cerner.com/solutions/Medical_Devices/Smart_Pump_Infusion_Integration/.

About Children's Hospitals and Clinics of Minnesota
Children's Hospitals and Clinics of Minnesota is one of the largest pediatric health systems in the United States and the only health system in Minnesota to provide care exclusively to children, from before birth through young adulthood. An independent and not-for-profit system since 1924, Children's serves kids throughout the Upper Midwest at two free-standing hospitals, 12 primary and specialty-care clinics and six rehabilitation sites. Children's maintains its longstanding commitment to the community to improve children's health by providing high-quality, family-centered pediatric services and advancing those efforts through research and education. An award-winning health system, Children's is regularly ranked by U.S. News & World Report as a top children's hospital and by The Leapfrog Group for quality and efficiency. Please visit childrensMN.org.

About CareFusion Corporation
CareFusion CFN is a global corporation serving the health care industry with products and services that help hospitals measurably improve the safety and quality of care. The company develops industry-leading technologies including Alaris^® infusion pumps and IV sets, MaxPlus^® and MaxZero^™ IV connectors and sets, Pyxis^® automated dispensing and patient identification systems, AVEA^®, LTV^® series and AirLife^® ventilation and respiratory products, ChloraPrep^® products, MedMined^® services for data mining surveillance, V. Mueller^® surgical instruments, and an extensive line of products that support interventional medicine. CareFusion employs approximately 15,000 people across its global operations. More information may be found at www.carefusion.com.  

About Cerner
Cerner is contributing to the systemic change of health and care delivery. For more than 30 years Cerner has been executing its vision to make health care safer and more efficient. We started with the foundation of digitizing paper processes and now offer the most comprehensive array of information software, professional services, medical device integration, remote hosting and employer health and wellness services. Cerner systems are used by everyone from individual consumers, to single-doctor practices, hospitals, employers and entire countries. Taking what we've learned over more than three decades, Cerner is building on the knowledge that is in the system to support evidence-based clinical decisions, prevent medical errors and empower patients in their care.

[1] CareAware Infusion Suite and Cerner Millennium are registered trademarks of Cerner Corporation, Kansas City, Mo.

[2] "Integrated solution helps improve pediatric patient safety, streamline IV medication management," Carroll, B., Patient Safety & Quality Healthcare, March/April 2013.

[3] Leape, L. L. et al. (1995), "Systems analysis of adverse drug events," JAMA, 274, 35-43.

SOURCE CareFusion Corp.