.png)
2024 | Feb 01
"ECRI's Top 10 Health Technology Hazards for 2024 list identifies the potential sources of danger we believe warrant the greatest attention this year and offers practical recommendations for reducing risks. Since its creation in 2008, this list has supported hospitals, health systems, ambulatory surgery centers, and manufacturers in addressing risks that can impact patients and staff. New for this year, our executive brief includes specific calls to action for the industry."
Pneuma expert comment:
"This year, ECRI's research has identified 8 out of the 10 hazards that relate directly to sources of patient harm generated by infusion pumps. We appreciate ECRI's challenges to the market leaders, and we will exceed their expectations." - Jeffrey Carlisle, Founder/CEO
2024 | Jan 15
Infusion Therapy Standards of Practice 9th Edition 2024 by INS calls to “standardize the types of pumps used in an organization to promote user familiarity with its operation” and for “pumps [to] follow and stay with patients to help minimize the need to re-establish infusions after patient transfers".
Pneuma expert comment:
"The recommendation to use differentiated pumps for certain applications has been a challenge in regards to the other recommendation to standardize types of pumps within an organization. At Pneuma, we have priotized the design of an infusion pump platform that can follow the patient throughout the continuum of care." - Peggy McDaniel, RN
2023 | Nov 27
“Switching from heparin to normal saline (NS) as the preferred flushing solution for central venous catheter (CVC) lines in adult ambulatory patients with cancer saved one institution nearly $30,000 without affecting quality of care, researchers reported in the Clinical Journal of Oncology Nursing. The change also increased patient safety by reducing risk of heparin-induced thrombocytopenia or allergic reactions, the authors said.”
Pneuma expert comment:
"There is no doubt that flushing improves IV port preservation. If a flush could occur automatically and directly following a therapy, even more ports and dollars would be saved, especially for unsupervised infusions at home." - Stanley Chamallas, RPh FASHP FNHIA
2023 | Sept 06
“When a submitter cannot identify a valid predicate device(s) that is consistent with any of the best practices discussed in Section V of this guidance, FDA recommends that the submitter include a statement in their 510(k) Summary that a valid predicate that is consistent with the best practices was not available. FDA recommends that the submitter also use the Performance Data Section of the 510(k) Summary to describe the ways performance testing was conducted to address any known safety or effectiveness concerns with the predicate device used to support the 510(k) submission.”
Pneuma expert comment:
"While the 510(k) Draft Guidance will undoubtedly make it more challenging for existing technologies, at Pneuma, we designed our system to tackle all of the well known safety hazards including those that have not been previously addressed by the FDA." - Jeffrey Carlisle, Founder/CEO
2023 | May 03
“Significant challenges with i.v. drug infusion therapy are medication errors, infection and drug incompatibilities, but flow-rate variabilities in particular have been highlighted as a persistent problem when using syringe pump systems for microinfusion.... Despite continuous development in technology and improvement in education over the past years, there remains considerable patient risk due to both a lack of awareness on the part of healthcare professionals, and to the intrinsic physical shortcomings and inappropriate use of these systems.”
Pneuma expert comment:
"We all know that syringe pumps struggle with low flow rates, so there is an opportunity for Pneuma to raise the bar for infusion pump performance, especially at the upper and lower flow rates." - Peggy McDaniel, RN
2023 | Apr 11
“Nurse recruitment and retention is top of mind for every hospital and health system executive given that the shortage of registered nurses is only expected to intensify.... It found the average cost of turnover for one staff RN increased 13.5 percent from 2021 to 2022, to $52,350, among other dollar figures and statistics that are helpful to understand the financial implications of one of healthcare's most challenging labor disruptions.”
Pneuma expert comment:
"So many factors contribute to nurse turnover, and in my experience, asking nurses to perform tasks outside their expertise, like IT troubleshooting with clunky interoperable smart pumps, biomedical troubleshooting, and applying physics principles to infusion therapy configuration are significant contributors." - Peggy McDaniel, RN
2023 | Mar 29
“When I go around the state and talk to nurses, they tell me they come out of work and sit in their car and cry for half an hour,” Murphy said. “They are so worried about what they missed during a shift. That will drive a nurse to leave the bedside. The answer is to make sure those circumstances are different.”
Pneuma expert comment:
"It is especially troubling to hear that the nursing workforce crisis we are experiencing is prompting more nurses to retire or leave the field, further perpetuating the crisis. Hospitals need to pour their resources into making a meaningful impact to clinicians' day to day." - Miranda Bakos, Process Transformation
2023 | Mar 15
“It starts with the absolute commitment, outspoken and believable commitment, of the senior leadership team,” Schabacker says. “If the CEO of a hospital system says, ‘I am striving for zero preventable harm,’ that is a statement.”
Pneuma expert comment:
"After working in the healthcare sector for decades, I can't believe I'm still reading about preventable patient deaths due to medical errors. Technology should be the driving force to improve patient safety, especially a quarter of the way into the 21st century."
- John Toomey, JD, MBA
2023 | Mar 9
"Essentially, organizations had to use more contract labor while also paying exponentially more for the contract labor they used," the report said. Certain departments, such as nursing and emergency services, saw contract full-time equivalents jump more than 180 percent per unit of service, according to the report.
Pneuma expert comment:
"Wow. Sadly, I don’t think that hospitals or health systems are planning for the next challenge. It is coming and we need to be future-proofing our health system and supporting caregivers." - Peggy McDaniel, RN
2023 | Feb 27
The biggest issue for us today is labor costs. Our biggest growth is in outpatient care. A lot of surgeries are moving outpatient, so we have to get ahead of that. Some think we are only a hospital system, but only about 46 percent of our business is from our hospital sector today. Home care is going to grow phenomenally, especially given the new technology that's available. Digital health will also dramatically expand.
Pneuma expert comment:
"We are seeing themes of new technology containing or reducing labor costs. The legacy infusion pump solutions on the market today cannot meet those need. Additionally, current and future clinical labor shortages will not be able to manage these proposed increases in off-site care without the use of new (disruptive) technology." - Stanley Chamallas, RPh FASHP FNHIA
2023 | Feb 23
Another shortage among the clinical workforce is experience. “Not only are we seeing a large gap in experienced labor, the patient population is becoming older and more complex. This has pushed hospitals to seek support from an industry expert to help alleviate this labor-patient imbalance,” stated Bailey.
Pneuma expert comment:
"This is concerning as a clinician because nursing is a profession that ideally thrives in an environment with positive attitudes towards life-long learning and mentorship. When the tested and proven clinicians leave, who will guide those that have only limited experience and insight?" - Peggy McDaniel, RN
2023 | Feb 20
Dr. Keroack cited a Massachusetts Health and Hospital Association survey that estimated there are 19,000 full-time job vacancies across Massachusetts acute care hospitals. Baystate Health itself has about 1,650 total open positions, more than double the organization's pre-pandemic state.
Pneuma expert comment:
"This is truly a crisis that must be addressed with bold action and new technology to drive patient safety, nurse efficiency, and lower operating costs." - Miranda Bakos, Process Transformation
2023 | Feb 14
As costs continue to rise, hospitals and healthcare systems will employ more advanced practice providers, further consolidate administrative functions, and pursue new technologies to help with patient monitoring and care both in the hospital and at home.
Pneuma expert comment:
"We're seeing themes of new technology enabling at-home care. The infusion pump solutions on the market today cannot meet these needs while supporting the same level of patient safety seen at an outpatient facility." - Stanley Chamallas, RPh FASHP FNHIA
2023 | Feb 13
“Hospitals need to take both long- and short-term measures to address critical workforce issues so they can continue to provide safe, high-quality care now and in the future,” says Deborah J. Bowen, FACHE, CAE, president and CEO of ACHE.
Pneuma expert comment:
"Pneuma is addressing these concerns head on. We're eager to share how we're doing this." - Jeffrey Carlisle, Founder/CEO
2023 | Feb 2
Dianne Aroh, RN, chief nursing officer at Seattle-based Virginia Mason Franciscan Health, said it comes down to priorities because it's impossible to do it all. She suggested clinical leaders "shift their mindsets to change workflows by removing tasks that are not necessary when looking to provide quality care."
Pneuma expert comment:
"We know that the supply of qualified nurses is going to decrease year over year, so we must improve the efficiency of this limited resource to ensure that patient safety is upheld." - Peggy McDaniel, RN
2023 | Jan 31
"I think we will see a significant increase in the utilization of technology to further support our care teams as patient interactions continue to shift from in the hospital to an ancillary or in-home setting."
Pneuma expert comment:
"We couldn't agree more. Leveraging technology to improve workflow efficiency, quality of care, and patient outcomes seem to be themes from these healthcare executives!" - Stanley Chamallas, RPh FASHP FNHIA
2023 | Jan 28
This year we put forward a plan to serve more patients efficiently," he said during his speech.
Pneuma expert comment:
"Our PneumaFlow Controller™ platform could be a bold response to Dr. Mihaljevic’s call to action, which directly asked for ideas to use Cleveland Clinic facilities and resources more efficiently." - Miranda Bakos, Process Transformation
2023 | Jan 17
Ideally, the flow delivery of an infusion system is proportional only to the rate of mechanical actuation of the syringe pump plunger. However, in the real world, overall infusion system compliance may be affected by components such as an extension of tubing lines, or different sizes of syringes.
Pneuma expert comment:
"The conditions for a syringe infusion pump to work are so complex, and rarely happen. This is dangerous for patient safety and puts dangerous expectations on the nurse." - Peggy McDaniel, RN
2023 | Jan 11
Nearly a quarter of hospital stays involve adverse events from healthcare errors, and nearly one in 10 cause serious harm, according to a study replicating the landmark 1991 Harvard Medical Practice Studyopens in a new tab or window(HMPS).
Pneuma expert comment:
"Everyone likes to assume that patient safety has improved since 1991, but this shows that it has not. Increasingly challenging nurse staffing has a direct impact on patient care, so we must address the nursing shortage first in order to improve patient safety." - Brent Nibarger, Process Transformation in Acute Care
2023 | Jan 5
In a survey released in April of 2022, over 69% of nurses who responded said staffing is slightly worse or much worse recently. That is about 20% higher than a September 2021 survey and almost 48% higher than a March 2021 survey. The survey also found: Over 26% of nurses were reassigned to a clinical area that required skills they didn’t have. This was around 18% in September; 46% of nurses were reassigned to units outside their area of expertise with no education or training; Almost 65% of nurses said hospitals are using too much overtime to staff units.
Pneuma expert comment:
"The nursing staffing shortage is truly a crisis in healthcare that providers must address now to avoid nursing strikes, improve patient safety, and uphold reliability." - Miranda Bakos, Process Transformation
2022 | Dec 2
Providers finishing a shift may be tired and rushed and more apt to omit key information important to the patient’s care.
Pneuma expert comment:
"What if, instead of relying on nurses to manually enter information on infusion therapies, we relied on the technology itself? Reducing handoffs is a key target for us at Pneuma." - Miranda Bakos, Process Transformation
2022 | Nov 8
Over 4000 preventable injuries due to medication errors occur each year in any given hospital. Smart pumps have been widely introduced as one means to prevent these errors. Although smart pumps have been implemented to prevent errors, they fail to prevent specific types of errors in the medication administration process and may introduce new errors themselves.
Pneuma expert comment:
"This is one of the first studies where "smart pumps" are quantified as inherently not smart. Pneuma's closed-loop control system is actually smart, since it's aware of both the fluid volume leaving the pump system, as well as the flow rate, both of which can be validated against the programmed rate. Patient safety and reliability are our top concerns." - Adam Bahret, Reliability
2022 | Oct 17
It's my responsibility and all nurse leaders' responsibility to make it as easy as possible for nurses to practice safely and make it hard for them to make an error, and we need to do that by doing things like making sure we provide them with the most up-to-date modern technology; that good processes and systems are in place; that staffing is where it should be; and that their environments are conducive to safety.
Pneuma expert comment:
"Our team believes that "more training" should never be the answer to improve reliability in patient care. Technology should drive better outcomes." - Brent Nibarger, Process Transformation in Acute Care
2022 | July 28
Within several weeks, an organization experienced three errors in which patients received uncontrolled intravenous (IV) infusions at rapid rates. As noted in the event descriptions that follow, the infusions were all associated with high-alert medications—heparin, propofol, and phenylephrine—that should have been administered at a controlled rate via a smart infusion pump.
Pneuma expert comment:
"It is so troubling to see complex infusion scenarios end in patient harm because the technology does inherently provide any safety characteristics." - Peggy McDaniel, RN
2022 | Jun 30
Infusion pump alerts and alarms impact clinical care, as alerts and alarms by design interrupt clinical workflow.
Pneuma expert comment:
"We're thankful that a study exists to highlight the issue caused by rampant alarms. However, this study fails to mention the impact on patient safety for the patient the nurse must leave behind to attend to an alarming pump in a different room. There is a cascading impact caused by alarm-prone pumps on the market today. Instead of using these open loop systems to alarm more than they should, we should be using closed loop control systems to alarm only when there is a real need." - Jeffrey Carlisle, Founder/CEO
2022 | May 12
“The pandemic made longstanding labor challenges in the healthcare sector much worse, making it far more expensive to care for hospitalized patients over the past two years,” said Erik Swanson, senior vice president of data and analytics at Kaufman Hall. “Hospitals now face a number of pressures to attract and retain affordable clinical staff, maintain patient safety, deliver quality services and increase their efficiency,” Swanson said.
Pneuma expert comment:
"With such high percentages of increased costs, hospitals need to make bold change. This crisis will not be solved by using 30+ year old infusion therapy procedures that are dangerous and costly, and ripe for disruption." - Jeffrey Carlisle, Founder/CEO
2022 | May 11
By 2025, we estimate the United States may have a gap of between 200,000 to 450,000 nurses available for direct patient care, equating to a 10 to 20 percent gap
Pneuma expert comment:
"We all understand the nursing crisis exists. This article truly quantifies how dire the labor shortage really is, and will continue to be."
- Jeffrey Carlisle, Founder/CEO
2022 | Apr 1
Data from Syntellis Performance Solutions show a 213% increase in hourly rates charged to hospitals by staffing companies for travel nurses in January 2022 compared to pre-pandemic levels in January 2019.
Pneuma expert comment:
"Costs are continuing to rise. Health systems must look at their spend, but also must understand how nurses spend their time. Every minute counts." - Peggy McDaniel, RN
2022 | Feb 2
Up to $265 billion worth of care services for Medicare fee-for-service and Medicare Advantage beneficiaries could shift to the home by 2025.
Pneuma expert comment:
"When care shifts away from the hospital, attention to patient safety is more challenging. Using a technology at home with the benefits of modern Wifi and Bluetooth connectivity, clinicians can have more oversight into drug compliance, patient health, and technology management." - Peggy McDaniel, RN
2021 | Jan 27
The log revealed that 140 nursing minutes were squandered each week hunting for pumps.
Pneuma expert comment:
"With the current nursing shortage crisis, we must remove all non-patient care tasks from a nurse's day." - Peggy McDaniel, RN
2020 | Mar
Despite the growing support for the use of smart pumps as a safety strategy, however, the literature shows varying results for the effect they have on reducing medication errors. User error, inadequate use of safety technology, incorrect programming, and equipment failures can still occur, significantly impacting patient safety.
Pneuma expert comment:
"We need to take a fresh look at current infusion therapy workflows and speak with nurses and patients in order to improve how they interact with infusion therapy devices. The current offerings available are not the best solutions to address needs." - Jeffrey Carlisle, Founder/CEO