Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center (OLOL, Baton Rouge, La.) has successfully tested and implemented auto programming between infusion pumps and a bar-code point-of-care system throughout its facility.
Through a three-way partnership with Kansas City, Mo.-based Cerner and Hospira, Inc. (Lake Forest, Ill.), OLOL has completed house-wide deployment of a connected medication infusion device, which the company says helps minimize manual programming for entering medication orders on the pump at the patient’s bedside.
The auto programming process uses a set of bar codes located on the patient wristband, the medication bag and the infusion pump to pull data from the EHR and to confirm the five rights of medication administration. Using a handheld device, the caregiver scans the three bar codes and confirms the order on the pump to deliver the medication exactly as ordered by the physician in the EHR. Auto programming infusion pumps decreases the chance for dosing errors, reduces programming time and increases compliance with medication orders, says the company.
Our Lady of the Lake is one of the largest private medical centers in Louisiana, with more than 700 licensed beds and an 11-parish service area. Our Lady of the Lake treats more than 33,000 patients in the hospital and serves more than 350,000 persons through outpatient locations with the assistance of more than 1,000 physicians and 4,000 team members.
