IV Pumps--have you used Baxter's Sigma Spectrum??

[AKav8trix]

Hi All,

I'm looking into purchasing new IV pumps for our small, very rural clinic/urgent care/ED/Obs (4-bed Obs and ED combined). :) We're leaning towards the new Baxter Sigma pumps, as they look user-friendly and I like the fact you can use standard IV administration sets.

If you use them in your facility, what do you think of them? We need something simple to use for basic abx infusions, saline boluses, or the rare titratable vasoactive drip until medivac arrives. Not having to buy "special" pump tubing would be wonderful. I like the small size, too.

Thanks!! :)

[socalmedic]

I had to deal with the Baxter pumps on one rotation in nursing school, and wasn't a fan. They errored "Upstream Occlusion" if you so much as sneezed, and we frequently had problems with a very poorly programmed infused medications library. For example, there were entries for ciprofloxacin and ceftriaxone, but not for vancomycin or gentamicin, the two antibiotics you really should be running on pump. And then there was the day we found out that the library didn't include nitroglycerin of all things, and on a tele/cardiac progressive floor no less - they had to hand calculate from mcg/min to mL/hr, a disaster waiting to happen. Hospital pharmacy said "there's a fix coming," that never showed up in the six weeks we were on that floor. As you can well imagine, our instructor told us in no uncertain terms not to go within six feet of anything other than maintenance fluids on pump!

My home hospital uses Alaris, and to the best of my knowledge we've never had a problem with them. They're rather on the bulky side, and it's a pain in the neck if you're running more than four meds over pump, but we've never had a problem with safety and Pharmacy is good about getting meds updates out to us quickly and reliably.

the library is constructed custom for each hospital, if your hospital does not have Nitro you should have it added stat. as for the discussion about 1l/hr, you really should not be using any small med pump for an infusion that fast. gravity would work, kinda but at 160gtts that not accurate, how about a dial-a-flo cheap and accurate at the higher flow settings. or you can use two pumps at 500cc/hr into a Y connector. the sigma is a good pump for moderate usage in a small setting. if you want to be flowing 10 pressers so you really want that many pumps. how about the baxter stack-able pumps... the sigma was never made to be in the ICU. tele, ER, med surge, flight/cct. I use it on my ambulance and get an up stream alarm seldom, if i do i throw a pressure bag in and it is all gone. check and make sure your slide clamp is all the way off.

i will tell you this though nothing will ever come close to the IVAC 3chnl I used to have. that pump was smaller than the sigma and worked a hell of alot better.

[mattellison22]

I am a 20 year leukemia patients. I have spent two long stints in-patient (NYPresbyreting and MSKCC) one for 6 months. From a patient's perspective, these are the bane of our existence. Nurses have told me the same. Yes you want them to be more sensitive than less, but tell that to the person who can't sleep nights on end because they beep throughout the night, upstream downstream occlusions, and others. Excruciating for the patient, and nurses have told me they go home after work and all they hear is the incessant beeping. It's well known unintended consequence that with all this beeping devices taking over in the haste to automate, nurses have no choice but to tune them out. So i have to ask, which is worse, more sensitive, or ignoring them all together?

After over 10 years from my first experiences with them, is there no entrepreneur who can't make something better?