Alaris currently has 200 Medley customers (with Guardrails, their smart pump/formulary/anonymous CQI database). At four of them, nurses enter the patient ID through a bubble keypad on the pump so they can pull pump data into their EMR via HL7.

This summer, Alaris will release the ability to establish patient context in the pump via barcodes -- no more bubble button pushing. The care giver scans the patient, themselves and IV meds with a barcode reader attached to the pump. At some point I would expect Alaris to leverage Cardinal/Pyxis meds delivery in some kind of value-added bundle.

This release announced at HIMSS includes a patient identifiable database and client apps for surveillance and therapy viewing. In addition to indicating alarm conditions, therapy viewing shows the caregiver the volume administered and the status of the pump. Therapy views also help the pharmacy to minimize waste because they can see when meds have been discontinued, perhaps before the change is reflected through Order Entry.

In addition to remote alarms at the nursing unit, Alaris will have the ability to push alarms out to nurse worn devices. Using Emergin middleware, they can "talk" to Vocera pendants, pagers, and phones. Primary alarm notification still comes from the Medley pump.

With their SPO2 module, Alaris also has limited physiological monitoring capabilities. This has significant potential for improving patient safety. Depending on the area in which the pumps are used and what equipment (and parameters) you may already have will determine the imprtance of this capability. This is of less value in an ICU, but of greater value in lower acuity areas that don't already have monitors.

With this new version of their system, Alaris adds patient context to their pump and CQI database, adds surveillance, and alarms.

Their WLAN link is 802.11 b, using an Alaris developed component radio.