Medication safety enhancement for secondary infusion

摘要

A system and method determine when fluid is not flowing properly from a secondary infusion source during a secondary infusion. The system includes an upstream pressure sensor and a processor programmed to receive signals from the sensor and analyze the signals to determine if secondary fluid flow is proper. The processor samples the output signals from the upstream pressure sensor and analyzes the sampled signals to determine if a pressure rise in the infusion line has occurred when the secondary infusion is initiated. If a pressure rise, indicating that fluid from the secondary container has begun flowing into the infusion line, has not been detected, the processor is programmed to provide a signal indicating that attention should be given to the infusion set up.

主权项

1. A method for passively detecting a fault condition in an intravenous (IV) set having a primary line coupled to a first fluid source, a secondary line coupled from a second fluid source to a fitting, upstream of a pumping mechanism, on the primary line, a check valve in the portion of the primary line between the first fluid source and the fitting, a valve in the portion of the secondary line between the second fluid source and the fitting, and a portion of the primary line that is downstream of the fitting being coupled to the pumping mechanism of an infusion pump, the method comprising:
determining with a processor a window of time around an initiation time of a secondary infusion mode; generating a series of pressure measurements by measuring a pressure of a fluid in the primary line at a point between the fitting and the pumping mechanism at periodic intervals; generating one or more most-recent pressure measurements by measuring the pressure of the fluid in the primary line at the point between the fitting and the pumping mechanism within the window of time; calculating a threshold pressure for each of the one or more most-recent pressure measurements based on the series of pressure measurements prior to the respective most-recent pressure measurement; comparing the each of the one or more most-recent pressure measurements to the respective threshold pressure; and indicating a fault condition if none of the one or more most-pressure measurement exceeds the threshold within the window of time.