Three Key Characteristics of Smart IV Pumps Every New Technician Should Know
If you are considering going into a medical technician field, you will come in contact with smart IV pumps. As someone new to the industry, you may be wondering what you will be facing when dealing with these IV pumps. Here are three of the main characteristics of these pumps that you need to know before you even begin using them. By keeping these key characteristics in mind, you will have an advantage over others seeking the same technician training you are.
Storing Information
One of the main things you need to know about smart IV pumps is that they will store a large library of medication information. This makes them ideal for hospital use when you will have multiple patients needing different medications and dosages throughout the work shift. This means that if you have a patient in one room that needs an antibiotic every couple of hours, you can feed in the name of the antibiotic. You can then queue up how often they get the drip and how much. When the patient leaves, you can easily clean the current memory and start fresh for the next patient without changing machines.
Care Settings
One of the issues with many traditional IV pumps is the increased chance of giving too much or too little medication. With a smart IV pump, you can enter in the care settings based on the stored information from the pharmaceutical library within the pump itself. This care information can range from how often the medicine should be administered to the dosage amount of the medication. This means that the smart pump controls how much of a medication is sent to the patient and reduces the error of sending too much or too little by metering the dosages. The care information can be stored in the smart IV pump for the patient so when the patient moves from the ER or ICU to another room, the pump can then move with them without changing the care settings.
Multiple Feeds
Most smart IV pumps use three channels on each side of the device. This means that one pump unit can be programmed to handle up to three channels of medication through the IV to the patient. For example, if they get a continuous saline drip, that can run through one channel with specific programming for that channel drip. If the patient also takes an antibiotic and a painkiller those can be run through the other two channels. The IV pump will store the information for each channel making sure the patient gets what they need, when they need it, in metered doses.
These are just three of the key things you need to know about smart IV pumps. Keep in mind that there are smart IV pumps that handle more channels and more information. You will be trained on the various types as you move through your specific technician program.