Investigating multiple sources of data for smart infusion pump and electronic health record interoperability

Infusion pump data, which describe compliance to dose-error reduction software among other metrics, are retrievable from infusion pump vendor software, electronic health record (EHR) systems, and regional and national data repositories such as the Regenstrief National Center for Medical Device Informatics (REMEDI). Smart infusion pump and EHR interoperability has added to the granularity and complexity of data collected, and clinicians are challenged with efficiently comprehending and interpreting the data and reports available.

Collaborative partnerships between the Indianapolis Coalition for Patient Safety and the Regenstrief Center for Healthcare Engineering allowed for clinicians, informaticists, researchers, and engineers to compare the information gained and strengths of using smart infusion pumps, EHR, and REMEDI to assess hospital medication safety in a setting of interoperability. Seven reporting capabilities were used to compare available reports, and 2 hypothetical scenarios were developed to highlight these processes. Infusion pump vendor-provided software and reports were found to provide the most usable information for detailed infusion reporting, while the EHR was strongly usable for interoperability compliance and REMEDI excelled in benchmarking capabilities.

While infusion analytics needs may differ across health systems, a better understanding of the strengths of infusion pump data and EHR data may help provide structure and direction in the infusion analytics process. Infusion data repositories such as REMEDI are useful tools to obtain information in a way not delivered by smart pump data.