Medication safety enhancement for secondary infusion

摘要

A system for determining a fault condition in an infusion system including an infusion pump (10) capable of infusing fluid from a primary container (14) and a secondary container (25), the secondary infusion line having a valve (28), the primary infusion line having a check valve (29), the system comprising:
a pressure sensor (50) to measure pressure within the primary infusion line (16);
a memory (80) for configured to store pressure related values; and
a processor (75) in communication with the memory (80) and responsive to the signals provided by the pressure sensor (50), the processor programmed to:
sample the pressure signals;
establish a baseline pressure value;
store the baseline pressure value in the memory;
operate the infusion pump to increase the pressure in the primary infusion line;
sample the pressure signals after operating the pump to increase the pressure in the primary infusion line;
compare the baseline pressure value with pressure values sampled after operating the pump to increase the pressure in the primary infusion line; and
provide an alert that a fault condition exists if the latter sampled pressure value equals or is greater than a selected threshold pressure value.