Daniel C Pettus

Introduction

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Infusion pumps have evolved from stand-alone mechanical devices to a fully integrated networked application.  Technological complexity and associated misunderstandings may pose difficulties during the evaluation and selection process for hospitals.

It is not the intent of this document to provide a deep dive on clinical use or security.  Publications from AAMI, ECRI, NIST, and others, offer considerable material on cybersecurity and clinical use.   Purpose of this document is to provide an assessment with accompanying scores developed by the author, Dan Pettus, to measure real-world features, maintainability, and ease-of-use when integrating infusion pumps on a complex hospital network infrastructure.    

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The term ‘pump’ means any infusion modality including large volume, syringe, PCA, and others.  Criteria for successful network implementation and sustainability is virtually the same no matter what infusion modality is under evaluation.  Criteria questions assume the pump being evaluated supports wireless connectivity.

 

Method

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Each criterion is described with an associated score.  Scores are weighed based on the author’s expertise and experience.  Totaling scores may be used to identify what vendors and devices provide the best overall proficiency with integration on hospital network infrastructures.  Do not solely rely on these criteria.  Use this document as a foundation for infusion pump network connectivity evaluation.  

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Open access – Crowdsourcing

The author encourages other experts to modify and submit additional criteria questions as needed.  The author requests edits are shared with others so they can also take advantage of these updates.

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