General-purpose infusion pumps. Evaluating the B. Braun Outlook Safety Infusion System.

General-purpose infusion pumps deliver liquid medications and intravenous (i.v.) fluids to patients through i.v. or epidural routes at specified flows. They are most often used when greater accuracy or higher flows are needed than can be provided by a manually adjusted gravity administration set. In this Evaluation (which updates our October 2002 study), we present our findings for two newly evaluated pumps: the B. Braun Outlook 100 and Outlook 200. The Outlook 200 is the first general-purpose infusion pump to offer a new type of safety feature: an automated programming system. This system scans bar-coded labels on i.v. fluid containers and on patient (and sometimes clinician) identification and automatically programs this information into the pump. Unfortunately, the 200's system has not yet been successfully implemented in a clinical setting.