San Luis Valley Health is made up of two hospitals and five clinics within rural southern Colorado. Like many other health systems, San Luis Valley Health was running into the common problems associated with manual pump programming. “Our primary goal is always patient safety. We wanted to focus on reducing possible medication errors caused by manual pump programming.” said Brittany Sours, MSN-Ed, RN, CEN, CPEN, NPD-BC, Director of Nursing Professional Development. They needed a tool to help connect their smart pumps with the EMR, which would alleviate these concerns.
They chose Accelero Connect®, a bi-directional smart pump integration solution. Accelero Connect helped bridge the gap between their Ivenix pumps and their EMR, allowing for greater accuracy on the pumps, better auto documentation within the EMR, and an improved workflow for the nursing staff.
Overcoming Obstacles
The process wasn’t “plug-and-play.” As Cindy Jackson, BSN, RN, Nurse Informatics Specialist, shared. The project required extensive testing and validation to ensure every medication was mapped correctly between systems. Working closely with iatricSystems’s project team, their pharmacy team, and even their internal SQL writers, San Luis Valley Health conducted numerous rounds of testing to confirm that infusion orders matched precisely between MEDITECH and the smart pump. “Testing every medication took time,” Jackson noted, “but it was worth it. The detailed testing ensured patient safety and made go-live successful.”
The next challenge came from MEDITECH’s limited native integration options. Because the vendor supported only one pump brand natively, Tandra Dunn, RN, Nurse Informatics Specialist, and her team had to get creative to make the workflow seamless for nurses using Ivenix. They built custom rules and widgets within MEDITECH to help nurses maintain visibility, ensure accurate documentation, and flag manually entered infusions, protecting data integrity without adding extra steps. “We built reminders for nurses and customizable widgets so IV data could be seen right on the chart,” said Dunn. “That workflow worked perfectly for us.”
Education is Key
Education was key to success. Kate Blount, MSN-Ed, RN, NPD-BC, Education Coordinator, was committed to ensuring the nursing staff was confident and comfortable with using this new solution. Blount explained, “We focused on showing how smart pump programming makes their jobs easier, with less manual charting, improved safety, and smoother workflows.” Through a combination of training sessions, FAQ sheets, continuous rounding, and a skills fair, San Luis Valley Health has seen great adoption rates among their nursing team.
A Clinical Transformation
San Luis Valley Health has seen vast improvements since implementing Accelero Connect. Not only are nurses spending more time at the bedside helping patients, but the team is also seeing the benefits of Accelero Connect’s bi-directional functionality by capturing more revenue and seeing greater accuracy. “Since we implemented smart pump programming, we’ve seen improvements in all three of these areas.” noted Sours.
To learn more about Accelero Connect, please contact us at info@iatric.com