ABSTRACT
Smart infusion pump technology prevents errors caused by parenteral therapy. This paper aims to review the recent literature about smart pump uses, cases and adverse events, and strategies to minimize these disadvantages. Literature was explored from January 2000 to November 2021 using Google Scholar, PubMed, and ScienceDirect. There were assessments of the advantages and adverse effects of using smart pumps and strategies to overcome the adverse effects of smart pumps. The advantage of using smart pumps is that they decrease errors like incorrect rate and dose. Other benefits include a decrease in medication event rates and the ability to connect smart pumps to home health providers. However, compliance rates were negatively influenced by improper smart pumps and the overriding of soft alerts, which can cause alert fatigue and drug library update delays. Recent studies have tried to address the negative issues by improving drug library compliance and decreasing alerts to avoid alert desensitization. The investigations revealed that the smart pumps reduced errors but would only prevent some programming errors. Compliance with utilizing smart pump technology is critical in stopping medication errors. Opportunities for future improvement are broad, including integrating a smart pump infusion with the hospital system, implementing auto programming, and designing smart pump devices to be lighter, smaller, and more portable instead of the heavy, large smart pump used by most hospitals today.
