ICU Nurses Offered Tool to Prevent Deadly Medication Mistakes

GUERNEVILLE, Calif., Nov. 9 /PRNewswire/ -- Hospital Intensive Care Units are
among the most expensive costs in the U.S. health care industry. Intensive
Care Units represent 10% of acute care beds, costing billions of dollars
annually.

Patients in ICU areas are typically very ill; their problems can be complex
with a large range of acute illnesses and preexisting conditions present.
Intensive Care Unit patients are often the sickest of the critically sick
patients.

The majority of injurious or deadly adverse drug events or medication errors
were related to errors programming IV pumps, IV equipment, misread drug
packaging, incorrect medication labeling and miscommunication between health
care professionals - doctors and pharmacists.

ICU medication errors are very costly - in lives and dollars.

ICU patients receiving vasoactive drugs such as dopamine, dobutamine, and
other powerful vasoactive drugs must be kept hemodynamically stable.

ICU nurses are tasked with the control of lifesaving but potentially lethal
vasoactive drugs. In hospitals around the globe nurses are administering
vasoactive drugs with the constant risk of potential adverse drug reactions
and medication errors.

Vasoactive drugs are very potent and are typically administered through an
infusion pump. ICU patients can be receiving multiple medications with
multiple IV drips to maintain hemodynamic stability. These vasoactive drugs
offer a pharmacological or mechanical support to maintain a normal blood
pressure and adequate cardiac output.

The Dangers of Multiple Medications in ICU

With so many different medications being delivered through multiple IV lines
it becomes necessary for nurses to use tape or labels on the I.V. lines at
several points to quickly check or discontinue an intravenous infusion line in
an emergency.

Pharmacists, doctors and nurses involved with prescribing and administering
vasoactive drugs all play a role in patient safety.

ColorSafe IV Lines(TM) infusion sets feature color-coded tubing / color-coded
labeling for easy identification and verification by health care professionals
of various intravenous medications with the goal of minimizing the risk of
accidental drug administration errors. ColorSafe IV Lines help hospitals to
improve safety in intravenous medication administration.

In combination with matching colored labels, the color-coded tubing will make
it faster and easier for health care professionals to ensure that patients
receive the correct type and dose of medication. By adding ColorSafe IV lines
for the second, third or more IV lines, the task of distinguishing lines
becomes simple, and expedites the procedure. The health care professional can
easily trace the line from the patient to the IV bag with the use of a color
tinted IV line. By using ColorSafe IV Lines, the potential for injecting
medication into the wrong line, or hanging a bag onto the wrong line, is
reduced.

IV errors can often be fatal because there are numerous IV drugs that are very
high-risk drugs with deadly side effects if given inappropriately or in
incorrect dosage. In addition speed is an issue; the medication goes directly
into the bloodstream and is thus available for rapid effect on the body. This
means there is little margin for a mistake before a tragic adverse drug event
occurs to the patient.

The ColorSafe IV infusion product line will initially feature color-coded
tubing in six (6) standard colors - red, green, orange, blue, purple and
yellow.

Note: Please click the photolink below to view where nurses have made labels
for the different IV drips - dopamine, dobutamine, etc. and the large orange
sticker these nurses use to identify where to push drugs.

ColorSafe IV Lines will be available in the United States during the first
quarter of 2010.

Photo: Clear IV Intravenous Lines are indistinguishable from one another. In a
typical Cardiovascular Intensive Care Unit post-transplant patient, it takes
two nurses nearly fifteen minutes to untangle the IV lines on a patient coming
from the surgery suite.
http://www.ereleases.com/pr/tangled-lines.jpg

ColorSafe brochure:
http://www.ereleases.com/pr/ColorSafe-IV-Lines.pdf

Contact:

Evan Lipstein
V.P. Marketing
888-207-9404 or
212-688-5600
http://www.colorsafeivlines.com

This release was issued through eReleases(TM). For more information, visit
http://www.ereleases.com.

SOURCE ColorSafe IV Lines

Evan Lipstein, V.P. Marketing of ColorSafe IV Lines, +1-888-207-9404,
+1-212-688-5600