SpringfieldNewsSun.com

Intravenous medications are rarely innocuous. An error in dosage or timing can result in serious side effects or even death.

Community Mercy Health Partners has reduced the risk of IV drug errors with the purchase of SmartPumps — machines programmed to prevent hospital staff from inadvertently dispensing lethal doses of intravenous medications.

The machines, in use at Community Mercy's three hospitals, were a $1 million investment, said Louis Kynard, Community Mercy's regional director of pharmaceutical and respiratory care.

They were purchased in the spring and were put on the floors two months later.

To prepare the machines, chemical coordinator Winnie Tsiang had to write software, programming doses and dispensing intervals for more than 800 medications used at the three hospitals.

"I've spent a lot of late nights," Tsiang said of her two-month research and programming marathon. To create the software, she had to research each medication using the general recommended dosages based on empirical evidence. She then met with physicians to discuss their most common dosages and intervals.

Tsiang's work created "guardrails" for each medication. The guardrails create maximum and minimum dosages and intervals for the medications. If a nurse wants to exceed those limits the machine will alert the nurse of the conflict or prohibit the nurse from dispensing the prescription.

To demonstrate, Tsiang typed in a slightly higher-than-recommended dose of Heparin into the machine. The machine's screen turned yellow, telling Tsiang to recheck her doses and get a second nurse to review. At a higher dose the machine's screen stated it would not dispense the medication as ordered.

Hospital researchers estimate each incident of drug dosage errors costs an average of $5,000 but Kynard prefers a different "return on investment" formula:

"The bottom line is the potential to save lives," he said.