Health devices
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A nurse's aide, in transferring a mother in labor to the delivery room, turned off the infusion pump delivering Pitocin, a drug administered intravenously to accelerate contractions. The aide removed the infusion set from the pump without first closing the manual clamp on the line. A free-flow infusion occurred, and the mother received nearly 35 times the prescribed amount of drug. ⋯ We first raised this issue in our 1982 Evaluation "Infusion Controllers" and have emphatically and repeatedly addressed it in Health Devices and other ECRI publications. Yet, hospitals continue to report free-flow infusions, a problem that can be addressed by both hospitals and device manufacturers. In this article, we describe the causes of free-flow--both user error and device design; report numerous incidents, some resulting in death; and provide recommendations for reducing the likelihood that such problems will continue to occur.