It's an easy mistake to make: put a muffin in the microwave and accidentally program it for 11 minutes instead of one.

But what if you are programming a patient's intravenous pump instead of a microwave? Since the equipment is similar to a microwave’s keypad, it's easy to accidentally double the numbers.

A medication error at a patient’s bedside is one of the leading causes of death due to hospital errors. It is estimated that more than 600,000 such errors occur every year. Of this total, 39 percent occur during prescribing, and of these, 48 percent are caught. By comparison, 38 percent of medication errors occur during the actual administration of a drug at the bedside, yet only two percent of these errors are discovered.

To drastically reduce medication errors at the bedside, Saint Joseph Mercy Health System is implementing new technology at its three hospitals that will reduce these bedside errors. SMART Infusion Technology decreases medication errors by preventing pump-programming errors through technology incorporated into the equipment.

Currently, most hospital pharmacies prepare the IV solution and deliver it to the patient unit. The nurse hangs the IV bag and must program in vital information on a surface much like that on a microwave oven. The nurse must correctly enter the medication concentration and bag size (dose and volume), patient's weight and flow rate. An error can occur at any one of these steps because no system checks its accuracy.

With SMART Infusion Technology, the pharmacy prepares the IV solution and delivers it to the unit for the nurse to hang. At this point, technology steps in to protect the patient through these steps:

· The nurse selects the patient unit: intensive care, neonatal (infants) intensive care, pediatrics, progressive care or medical-surgical.

· The nurse selects the medication from a list of preprogrammed medications and their possible concentrations.

· The system asks the nurse to verify his or her selection.

· If selections are correct, the nurse enters patient's weight when necessary for a medication.

· He or she decides to enter either the rate or dose (selecting one automatically sets the other).

· The nurse decides to enter the rate, for example, at which the doctor wants the medications to enter the patient's system.

This is the critical point where the technology protects the patient: if the nurse enters a rate outside of the predefined parameters, a warning appears on the screen. This simple but crucial step has the potential to drastically reduce medication errors at the bedside.

"This is breakthrough technology for patient safety," says Chris Cook, Pharmacy Operations Manager at Saint Joseph Mercy Hospitals in Ann Arbor and Saline. "Until now, there was no system to double check for errors at the bedside.

"We have systems in place to catch errors during ordering and filling medications, but never anything to check for administering errors. Now our hospitals have a checkpoint at each of the three points for potential error."

In addition, SMART Infusion Technology will capture data in the potential errors that were avoided for further analysis.

Although the new system costs more than traditional IV pumps, it can reduce costs associated with medication errors. According to the Institute of Medicine, total national costs (lost income, lost household production, disability and health care costs) of preventable adverse events are estimated to be between $17 and $29 billion, of which health care costs represent over one-half.

The new system also brings peace of mind to nurses.

"When someone becomes a registered nurse, it is usually in response to a deeper, personal calling to heal, treat and care for the sick and injured," explains Mary Lou Wesley, RN, Chief Nursing Officer at Saint Joseph Mercy Health System. "This new system provides nurses with a 'technical reassurance' that the care he or she is providing is accurate, safe and error-free. They can rest assured knowing their patients are safe from medication or accidental human error."

SMART Infusion Technology is the next step in patient safety for Saint Joseph Mercy Health System.