TECHNICAL FIELD

This disclosure relates to the field of clinical management, and particularly to systems and methods for efficient management of drug libraries in a networked clinical environment.

BACKGROUND

Modern medical care often involves the use of medical infusion pumps to deliver fluids and/or fluid medicine to patients. Infusion pumps permit the controlled delivery of fluids to a patient and provide flexible yet controlled delivery schedules. Drug libraries within the infusion pumps provide some limits pertaining to the delivery of fluids. Infusion pumps can communicate with a server configured to manage drug library updates and operational software updates of the individual infusion pumps.

SUMMARY

Various techniques for managing drug libraries across a clinical environment and a cloud environment are described herein. These techniques may include creating and maintaining medication and administration data in a drug library database, using the data to create and maintain drug libraries, and distributing the drug libraries to various systems and components. For example, customized drug library data may be provided to infusion pumps for use in administration of medication, while generalized drug library data is proved to middleware, archives, etc. for use in system management, reporting, backup, etc. These and other embodiments are described in greater detail below with reference toFIGS. 1-10. Although many of the examples are described in the context of a hospital environment including particular infusion pumps, data formats, and the like, the techniques described herein can be applied to other types of infusion pumps, data formats, etc.

Some aspects of the present disclosure relate to a drug library management system that facilitates centralized management of the drug libraries that are used by various infusion pumps, including in clinical environments that have different types and/or versions of infusion pumps. Medications, administration rules, critical care area rules, and the like are maintained using the drug library management system, also referred to herein as the “drug library manager.”

The drug library manager generates and distributes drug library data in pump-specific formats or other customized formats as needed. Therefore, different types and versions of infusion pumps, even those that use drug library data in different formats or that use different drug library data altogether, may be used in a clinical environment and managed using a single drug library management system.

