CHANGING INFUSION PRACTICE GENERATES SIGNIFICANT EFFICIENCIES IN NURSING TIME AND RESOURCE USAGE IN PAEDIATRIC...

Infusion preparation in British PICUs uses the Rule of Six (ROS) which was developed for administration without infusion devices. This method is inaccurate.1 Regulators recommend standardised approaches to IV infusions to improve patient safety and quality of care.2 Administration set changes also have an association with resource use and central line infections.3 We report the impact of fixed concentration infusions and reduced administration set changes on nursing time and infusion equipment cost.

Morphine and midazolam infusions were standardised in September 2014. Direct observation of infusion preparation was carried out beforeand after the introduction of fixed-concentration (FC) infusions to quantify the nursing time required to prepare infusions. Administration was prospectively documented using purposive sampling until a population-representative sample for age and weight was obtained (1 month). This data was then scaled up to predict activity over one year. Syringe use and administration set use was calculated. Reducing frequency of administration set changes to 72 hrs in accordance with infection control policy was then calculated retrospectively.

It takes 40 minutes (2 nurses×20 minutes) to prepare ROS syringes and 30 minutes (2 nurses×15 minutes) for FC syringes.In total ROS infusions required 2433 hrs of nursing time to prepare. FC infusions reduced this time by 25% (608 hrs) releasing 0.5 WTE nursing time back to patient care.Mean duration of IV sedation in these patients was 100 hrs. The cost associated with replacing administration sets with each syringe was £16,060. By changing every 72 hrs, this cost is reduced to £4,400 - a cost saving of £11,660.

FC syringes are more efficient than ROS. FC preparations have released 0.5 WTE nurses back to patient care. Changing administration sets 72 hrly realises significant cost efficiencies.