Evaluating an approach to improving the adoption rate of wireless drug library updates for smart pumps.
PURPOSE An academic medical center's approach to improving the adoption rate of wireless drug library updates for smart pumps was evaluated. SUMMARY A multidisciplinary team composed of pharmacy, nursing, medical engineering, materials management, and patient equipment personnel at an academic medical center collaborated to update the drug libraries of more than 1800 smart pumps via a wireless control system. Two pilot tests were completed to identify and resolve issues before the live wireless update was attempted. The second pilot test, a passive approach, produced an adoption rate of 42% of 1804 pumps at the end of one week and a rate of 56% on day 10. The goal of 80% was not achieved until day 22. The change to an active multidisciplinary process three months later produced an adoption rate of 80% for 1869 pumps on day 10, resulting in a 45.4% increase in the adoption rate between the two trials on day 10 (p 0.001) Communication regarding the updates was disseminated via e mail to the entire organization, with fliers posted on all patient care units, and verbally during staff meetings. Patient equipment personnel manually tagged each pump with a blue zip tie after verifying the update to easily identify which pumps had been updated. Areas for improvement include increasing communication to the staff detailing when the update will occur and changing the day of the week the update is performed. CONCLUSION A multidisciplinary team actively engaged in the updating of wireless i.v. smart pump drug libraries reduced the amount of time required to reach a goal adoption rate of 80%
American journal of health system pharmacy AJHP official journal of the American Society of Health System Pharmacists