Infusion Pump - Safety Features Available On Some Pumps

Safety Features Available On Some Pumps

The range of safety features varies widely with the age and make of the pump. A state of the art pump in 2003 may have the following safety features:

• Certified to have no single point of failure. That is, no single cause of failure should cause the pump to silently fail to operate correctly. It should at least stop pumping and make at least an audible error indication. This is a minimum requirement on all human-rated infusion pumps of whatever age. It is not required for veterinary infusion pumps.
• Batteries, so the pump can operate if the power fails or is unplugged.
• Anti-free-flow devices prevent blood from draining from the patient, or infusate from freely entering the patient, when the infusion pump is being set up.
• A "down pressure" sensor will detect when the patient's vein is blocked, or the line to the patient is kinked. This may be configurable for high (subcutaneous and epidural) or low (venous) applications.
• An "air-in-line" detector. A typical detector will use an ultrasonic transmitter and receiver to detect when air is being pumped. Some pumps actually measure the volume, and may even have configurable volumes, from 0.1 to 2 ml of air. None of these amounts can cause harm, but sometimes the air can interfere with the infusion of a low-dose medicine.
• An "up pressure" sensor can detect when the bag or syringe is empty, or even if the bag or syringe is being squeezed.
• A drug library with customizable programmable limits for individual drugs that helps to avoid medication errors.
• Mechanisms to avoid uncontrolled flow of drugs in large volume pumps (often in combination with a giving st based free flow clamp) and increasingly also in syringe pumps (piston-brake)
• Many pumps include an internal electronic log of the last several thousand therapy events. These are usually tagged with the time and date from the pump's clock. Usually, erasing the log is a feature protected by a security code, specifically to detect staff abuse of the pump or patient.
• Many makes of infusion pump can be configured to display only a small subset of features while they are operating, in order to prevent tampering by patients, untrained staff and visitors.