Infusion Pump Interoperability and Resulting Alert Reduction: Multisystem Findings

BACKGROUND: Intravenous (IV) medication errors pose significant patient safety risks. While most hospitals use IV smart pumps, adoption of interoperability with electronic health records remains limited. Interoperability can reduce nursing workload and programming errors, a common source of IV medication errors. OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to explore the impact of interoperability on programming alerts across diverse health systems that used a similar process and IV smart pump vendor for implementation. METHODS: This pre-post retrospective study analyzed data from 22 clinical sites across 5 health systems and 1 control system using Epic and Cerner electronic health records. Outcomes included programming alert rates, edits, overrides, and potentially averted underdose and overdose events. RESULTS: Integration significantly reduced programming alerts, edits, overrides, and potentially averted overdose events. Intermittently dosed medications saw the greatest alert reduction; titrated medications remained unchanged. CONCLUSION: Interoperability can improve the safety of IV medication administration while reducing alert burden for nurses.