One of the behind-the-scenes stars in a hospital setting is the infusion pump. They deliver medications and fluids into a patient’s body in a controlled way, employing safeguards to ensure we don’t overload or overdose a patient.

Because they’re so important and as a part of VCH-wide Accreditation 2016, the VCH Infusion Pump Safety Working Group is working to ensure that we are meeting the all the Accreditation tests for compliance to this Required Organizational Practice for the care and safety of our patients.

“We’ve done a lot,” says Jacqueline Per, Working Group Lead and Director, Quality & Patient Safety in Vancouver. “We’ve confirmed all the pumps we use in VCH and ensured that we have both quick reference sheets and vendor manuals for staff to reference. We are working with Clinical Education on the revamp of new-hire orientation to ensure we know what information is being presented so that we can align our outcomes with the education that is provided to staff.”

“We have developed competency checklists and consulted with an expert to ensure the methodology is sound and supportive to the learner,” she continues.” We are working with Management Development and Learning Technologies to try and streamline notifications to managers about staff requiring their competency check and that CCRS is capturing and storing that education information on the learner’s profile.”

Meeting weekly, the purpose of the regional working group is to support a documented and coordinated approach for infusion pump safety that includes training, evaluation of competence, and a process to report problems with infusion pump use is implemented.

“I am very proud of the team,” Jacqueline says. “I’m happy with the sharing of strategies, respectful and open communication between different clinicians and CoC’s, and the team’s desire to create systems and support structures that help us embed Accreditation standards into our daily work. It’s really satisfying.”