A new, cost-effective approach to outpatient infusion care with DripAssist
In outpatient infusion care environments with high patient loads, affordable and effective medication administration can be a challenge. Providers worldwide, ranging from oncology centers to rheumatology practices, use the DripAssist Infusion Rate Monitor as a cost effective solution for safe, accurate IV infusion management. DripAssist is a simple, affordable infusion rate monitor that easily attaches to any gravity drip set to continuously watch flow rate and volume during fluid and medication administration.
Using DripAssist to Improve Chemotherapy Delivery
EC Green Cancer Center at Jennie Stuart Medical Center, Hopkinsville, KY USA
Nursing staff at EC Green Cancer Center see up to 30-40 patients per day at their outpatient oncology/hematology infusion center, with infusions typically lasting between 30 minutes and two hours.
While the facility owns several infusion pumps, nursing staff use gravity IV infusions monitored with DripAssist to administer most infusions shorter than three hours. In seeking a tool to improve safety and accuracy for their infusions, EC Green chose DripAssist for its cost effectiveness, ease of use and ability toprovide continuous patient monitoring.
Ease of Integration and Use
After less than five minutes of training, the nurses were able to easily integrate DripAssist into their care protocols without changing their established practices or infusion sets. With DripAssist, nurses can now set up a monitored infusion in less than 30 seconds. When they use their pumps, setup takes 2-10 minutes.
Cost Savings with DripAssist
Nurses at EC Green can now accurately monitor infusions without the expenses associated with infusion pumps.“For 30 to 90 minute infusions, the cost and setup time of using a pump just isn’t efficient for us,” states Melissa Cramer, RN. In comparing the costs of consumables, EC Green found that using proprietary tubing sets for infusion pumps costs over three times the price of traditional gravity drip sets. Similar studies by Shift Labs have shown that when factoring in the costs of equipment, consumables, and maintenance replacing just one pump with DripAssist can save a clinic more than $6,000 over two years.
Improving Time and Patient Management
With DripAssist, nurses at EC Green are able to know exactly how long each infusion will take. This lets them better manage workloads and patient expectations. Knowing the precise drip rate and total volume infused allows nurses to better plan for and communicate when a patient’s infusion will be complete. This improves the patient experience, allowing nurses to keep family members informed or even order a taxi at the right time.
Workflow Efficiencies
Nursing staff at EC Green are now developing new protocol efficiencies and eliminating the time spent to manually count drip rates. Instead of hand counting drops every ten minutes when checking on infusions, nurses can now glance at the infusion rate as they walk through the room and spend more time interacting with patients.
This all adds up to more nursing time saved, and better patient experiences.
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