Risk of mis-selection of consumables for infusion pumps

(i) Among all imported infusion pumps, only Beltran infusion pumps allow clinical staff to change consumable specifications under the guidance of English menus, which are limited to Beltran's own brand-specific consumables, including clear tubes, light-avoidance tubes, and paclitaxel chemotherapy tubes, but this switching process is safe.

(ii) In contrast, domestic infusion pumps, which generally claim and encourage hospitals to use gravity infusion sets, also face the problem of brand switching when changing consumable specifications in the clinic, which is bound to create confusion if a number or code or a randomly altered reimbursement amount is used to differentiate between different brands and specifications of consumable characteristics as is the case with most of the domestic infusion pumps.

(3) If the brand and specification of the infusion device are switched incorrectly, it will cause the following medical risks:

(1) the error of flow rate and volume can be as high as 40% or more;

(2) it can cause toxic reaction because of the high concentration of blood drug;

(3) it can cause the delay of the treatment and the time of resuscitation because of the low concentration of blood drug.

(4) In response to such clinical risks, infusion pumps should:

(1) indicate the brands and specifications of consumables in Chinese;

(2) assist in checking the registration number of consumables when switching to meet the requirement of unique identification;

(3) use encrypted and other measures to manage the volume characteristics of the consumables, flow rate characteristics, and pressure characteristics to avoid clinical intentional or unintentional changes in these core parameters.