Infusion Pump Education: A Quality Improvement Project

Area of Science:

• Nursing Education
• Quality Improvement
• Medical Devices

Background:

• Infusion pumps are critical for continuous peripheral nerve block or epidural infusions.
• Ensuring nursing proficiency with these devices is essential for patient care.
• Current training may not adequately prepare all nurses for efficient pump management.

Purpose of the Study:

• To enhance registered nurse proficiency with infusion medical pumps.
• To increase the percentage of nurses proficient in managing infusion pumps by 10%.
• To improve nursing staff's ability to change infusion bags and program pumps by 25%.

Main Methods:

• A quality improvement project was implemented at Brooke Army Medical Center.
• Baseline data collected via surveys and timing exercises.
• Intervention included visual aids on pumps and formal nursing education.

Main Results:

• Post-intervention, 95% of nurses felt proficient with infusion pumps (up from 80%).
• Ability to hang a new infusion bag increased to 91% (from 45%).
• Average time to program the pump decreased by 41 seconds.

Conclusions:

• Visual aids and formal education significantly increase infusion pump proficiency and efficiency.
• This approach can reduce hospital costs and improve patient analgesia delivery.
• Enhanced nursing skills with infusion pumps contribute to better patient outcomes.