Nurse Scientists’ IV Smart Pumps Article Chosen as ‘Best Research Paper’ of 2021

Nursing innovators Karen Giuliano, professor and co-director of the Elaine Marieb Center for Nursing and Engineering Innovation, and Jeannine Blake, a post-doctoral research fellow in the College of Engineering, have received a top honor from the Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation (AAMI) for their paper on smart pump systems.

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The AAMI Publications Editorial Board selected “Nurse and Pharmacist Knowledge of Intravenous Smart Pump System Setup Requirements” as the Best Research Paper of 2021, published in BI&T (Biomedical Instrumentation and Technology).

The honor, which includes a $1,000 award, was presented earlier this summer at the AAMI’s 2022 eXchange conference.

The results of their study on intravenous (IV) smart pumps identified “a substantial lack of knowledge among frontline clinicians regarding manufacturer recommendations for accurate IV administration of primary and secondary infusions for head height differential infusion systems.”

They concluded that “both increased clinician education and innovative technology solutions are needed to improve IV smart pump safety and usability.”

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“With the high level of demand on nurse end-users at the point of care, innovative technology solutions designed using a human factors approach are needed to improve IV smart pump safety and usability in this important area of patient safety,” says Giuliano, a longtime critical care nurse and medical device innovator who holds a joint appointment in the Elaine Marieb College of Nursing and the Institute for Applied Life Sciences (IALS).

Blake, a former surgical intensive care nurse, recently earned her Ph.D. in nursing from UMass Amherst and now aims to develop medical devices that are safer for patients and more user-friendly for nurses.

“As a bedside nurse, I used IV smart pumps during every shift,” says Blake, who as a research fellow is being mentored by mechanical and industrial engineering assistant professor Juan Jiménez. “Once I began my research, I discovered that many of the issues I experienced in the clinical setting could be explained by the design of the pump I was provided. Unfortunately, this is just one example of a device that may work well in the isolation of an engineering lab, but the usability does not translate to the clinical environment, and that can lead to serious concerns for patient safety.”