Welch Allyn Protocol Inc. and Baxter Healthcare Corporation Sign Agreement To Interface Infusion Therapy and Patient Monitoring Technologies
PORTLAND, Ore., and DEERFIELD, Ill.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan. 30, 2001--Welch Allyn Protocol Inc. and Baxter Healthcare Corporation, today announced the two companies have signed a multi-year agreement to interface Welch Allyn Protocol's patient monitoring technology with Baxter's infusion therapy technology.
The agreement calls for the joint development and distribution of a new product, the Acuity Pump System (APS), which seamlessly networks Welch Allyn Protocol's Flexible Monitoring systems with Baxter's Colleague line of infusion pumps, creating a comprehensive medication delivery system.
"Our customers are increasingly demanding the ability to network their infusion pumps and integrate them with patient data to improve patient safety through reducing medication errors, increase nursing productivity and lower operating costs," said David F. Drohan, corporate vice president and president of Baxter's global I.V. Systems/Medical Products business. "Welch Allyn Protocol's Flexible Monitoring system is ideally designed for networking our infusion pumps with patient monitoring and data management."
The Acuity Pump System, as designed, will offer another layer of patient safety to infusion therapy. Nurses will know immediately when an infusion pump is in alarm regardless of their location by utilizing the wide area alarm notification capabilities of the patient monitoring system. Location of the patients receiving active administration of drug infusions can be assessed at a glance, remotely and/or centrally, for those times when the nurse is not available at the patient's bedside. Combining infusion therapy and patient monitoring data in a central location streamlines clinical decision-making. Documentation of care can be automatically archived, reviewed and printed. Nursing productivity and operating cost improvements are also benefits of the system. Capital assets and vendors may be consolidated and costly infusion errors reduced.
"Our strategic agreement with Baxter to interface infusion therapy devices with patient monitoring systems is a major step in realizing our `universal bed' concept, where disparate bedside technologies may be networked to a single system to support varying levels of patient care," said Robert F. Adrion, president and chief executive officer of Welch Allyn Protocol. "Our Flexible Monitoring systems enable healthcare providers to care for higher acuity level patients in lower cost settings, while improving patient satisfaction and maintaining outcomes. We are very pleased to be collaborating with Baxter, the infusion therapy market leader, to develop a totally new approach to integrate patient monitoring and infusion therapy practices."
The heart of the Acuity Pump System, Welch Allyn Protocol's Acuity Central Monitoring Station, is built on the powerful open architecture of the Sun Microsystems computer workstation. Each Acuity workstation utilizes standard Ethernet TCP/IP communication protocols and may network up to 60 patients including up to 240 Baxter Colleague pumps and Welch Allyn Protocol Propaq, QuikSigns and Micropaq vital signs monitors. Acuity workstations can be networked together to provide enterprise-wide support for the entire healthcare facility. Peripheral devices, including pumps and monitors, PDAs, Internet protocol telephones and color laser printers may be networked via hardwire, wireless and/or telephone modem connections.
The Colleague volumetric infusion pump series was designed to help caregivers administer state-of-the-art therapies by incorporating a host of innovations. Several features were designed into the device to provide intuitive operation, and safe, accurate medication delivery. For example, using cost effective standard Baxter IV tubing, including Interlink needleless technology, the process for loading the intravenous tubing is automated in order to reduce errors caused by misloading, and the front panel can be locked so that patients cannot interfere with programming. Colleague can deliver flow rates as low as 0.1 milliliters per hour, yet is flexible enough to accommodate rates as high as 1,200 milliliters per hour. With this wide span of flow rates, it can be used throughout an acute care facility-- from the neonatal intensive care unit, where the smallest dosages must be administered with the highest degree of accuracy, to the emergency room where trauma victims may require infusions of large volumes of fluid. Clinicians can tailor the Colleague pump's operating features to meet the various needs of all sites of care.
Baxter and Welch Allyn Protocol expect to begin shipments of the Acuity Pump System in the third quarter of 2001. |
