Paediatric electronic infusion calculator: An intervention to eliminate infusion errors in paediatric critical care

Medication errors, including infusion prescription errors are a major public health concern, especially in paediatric patients. There is some evidence that electronic or web-based calculators could minimise these errors.

To evaluate the impact of an electronic infusion calculator on the frequency of infusion errors in the Paediatric Critical Care Unit of The Royal London Hospital, London, United Kingdom.

We devised an electronic infusion calculator that calculates the appropriate concentration, rate and dose for the selected medication based on the recorded weight and age of the child and then prints into a valid prescription chart. Electronic infusion calculator was implemented from April 2015 in Paediatric Critical Care Unit. A prospective study, five months before and five months after implementation of electronic infusion calculator, was conducted. Data on the following variables were collected onto a proforma: medication dose, infusion rate, volume, concentration, diluent, legibility, and missing or incorrect patient details.

A total of 132 handwritten prescriptions were reviewed prior to electronic infusion calculator implementation and 119 electronic infusion calculator prescriptions were reviewed after electronic infusion calculator implementation. Handwritten prescriptions had higher error rate (32.6%) as compared to electronic infusion calculator prescriptions (<1%) with a p < 0.001. Electronic infusion calculator prescriptions had no errors on dose, volume and rate calculation as compared to handwritten prescriptions, hence warranting very few pharmacy interventions.

Use of electronic infusion calculator for infusion prescription significantly reduced the total number of infusion prescribing errors in Paediatric Critical Care Unit and has enabled more efficient use of medical and pharmacy time resources.