What Is Infusion Pump Integration, and Which Models Offer It?

Infusion pump integration refers to technologies available from most infusion pump vendors that enable the creation of an electronic connection between an infusion pump channel and an electronic medical record (EMR) system. This connection allows the pump channel, the patient, and a medication order to be associated with each other, which aids in safe medication administration and timely, accurate, consistent documentation of infusion data.

Infusion pump integration, also referred to as infusion pump interoperability, represents an evolution from earlier "smart pump" technology, which utilizes drug libraries to reduce gross medication errors. Specifically, integration aims to address many types of infusion-pump-related medication errors that can't be addressed by using smart pumps with drug libraries alone—for example, wrong-drug selections or misprogrammed doses that do not trip an alert limit (but are still potentially harmful).

Infusion pump integration comprises two key features:

1. Autoprogramming (also known as smart pump programming or prepopulation of infusion parameters)—Infusion program parameters, such as flow...