EBME Forums Forums Maintenance Technical Assistance Baxter Colleague Volumetric Infusion pumps

Very true Dave, the big snag is that Supplies types don't listen or care about the on costs.

The criteria seems to be, to hell with Biomed's views, 'we have done a deal' on the consumables at 50p a set!

A very large hospital not far from here had it worked up them that way, when the better product the Graseby was not bought because the consumables were too costly.

It all boils down to lies, damned lies, etc, etc.

Ian-C

** To whom much is given - much will be expected **

Guess what we all need to do (those of us that is that have unfortunate owner-ship of aforesaid pump) is to "send the boys round", If we all make the MDA aware of the problem they will feel obliged to look into it.
Maybe they can be the founders of a National testing protocol for volumemetric infusion devices. Would sort it out once and for all!

I can just envisage reading the headline in The Sun

"Patients die due to faulty equipment"

Are Supplies prepared to risk peoples lives for a 50p giving set?

If it wasn't for the diligence shown by our peers here then that is the scenario that could arise.

We are acting as the "safety net" for Baxter at the moment.

Ali-G is right, we need to make "forecfull" representation to the MDA to act, NOW!!!

I was always told when I first started doing this work by a very experienced and knowlegable engineer "Would you be prepared to accept putting that piece of equipment into use if it was going to be used on a member of your family"

I'd be weary of having my little one's life dependant on one of these pumps.

Don't get me wrong, what the guys have been posting here shows that they are spotting and "weeding" out the bad ones.

However, there may be ones out there in situations where they haven't been accurately checked and, from what I'm reading, have the potential to seriuosly under/over infuse.

Let's hope were not reading such headlines soon and thinking "If only..."

The hospital i work in have in past year purchased 230 baxter colleagues. On doing the first annual checks we found as many of you have, that the rates where low. We returned them under warranty only to be told they where fine even when we found them to be 10% out.
Initally they quested are testing method(IDA & Burrette). But as we have tested a wide range of infusion devices over many years without any problems we invited them to demonstrate there method against ours. They where not keen to do this and supplied us with a special batch of giving sets to test the pumps which did not have a batch no.
We informed the local baxter that this was unexceptable as we needed to use sets that where used on the wards in are hospital or our results would not be valid. This was because a pump with a accuracy quoted to be within 5% must include the error in the giving set.
We asked if any other hospitals where having a problem and where told that we where the only ones.
We asked for a meeting with baxter to discuss the problems we where having and they brought in Paul Cable (Europe marketing manager).
He preceded to tell us that there was a long standing problem with giving sets and that baxter were changing to many PHM's that were not faulty. He said that until a new giving set became avaliable this month a 12% error was not a fail !
Is this not what the MDA is for? Why have they not done anything about this?

Hi Paolo

I don't have any of these pumps so I can't appreciate the problem. Have you actually reported this problem to MDA as they may not be aware. I suggest that everyone that has had problems should also report as one of the things they look for is trends, multiple reporting by various trusts would tell MDA that this is a widespread problem than just a one-off report.

We shouldn't assume MDA already know about it or assume that somebody else has told them. However if Baxter know there is a problem then they are required by law to notify MDA under the vigilance system clause of the Medical Device Directive (remember user reporting is voluntry, manufacturer reporting is MANDATORY).

Our Hospital is considering buying a large amount of Infusion pumps and the Colleague would have been one we were looking at. I note that Paolo is from N. Ireland and would be interested in chatting to him (02871611237) Also very interested in any other comments on the colleague or indeed the Graesby

I had the Baxter rep in to see me a few days ago. We don't have many colleagues (6 in total, and they are all used for TPN in the community. We weren't happy with the set loading and the rep told me this was due to the pumps being older models. They are being upgraded free of charge to new pump heads. They are also loaning us pumps while ours are being upgraded.
From what I am told by our rep, the new pumps are now much improved compared to when they first came on the market 3 or 4 years ago.

As far as looking at consumables costs, it is very important. We should look at the whole picture and if 50 pence is the set cost compared to £10, it leaves money to spend in other areas, possibly Nurse Training. We bought Arcomedical 5005 pumps because they do the job and are cheap to run, and easy to maintain. There were problems with those pumps too. But the company have sorted it out and we are now happy with them.

We are spending tax payers money, and it should be spent in the best and most cost effective way.

How can you much improve on something too which they have denied there has been any problems with.

Is this an admission of some kind?

I agree John best practice should come into play when looking at value to leave the Tust to spend money saved in other areas.

I disagree though with your statement "We are spending tax payers money and it should be spent in the best and most cost effective way"

I wouldn't have thought "We" are spending the tax payers money, what I think "we" are doing is acting as a safety net to ensure "best practice" is acheived without financial restraints clouding impartiality.

I agree, if a giving set is 50p as opposed to £10, then "best practice" would favour the cheaper giving set if,and only if, factors such as safety, reliability and accuracy are equally matched.

If not then we should be basing our recommendations on an engineering perspective and not a financial one. The "bean counters" can still reach this decision if they choose, but we have recommended on strong technical reasons it is other peoples decision to use this information as they see fit.

We recently evaluated 6 different feeding pumps from 4 manufacturers for the contract supply of new equipment/feed.

We based our evaluation on technical and practical information provided and with trials, from an engineering point of view, on the pumps.
We submitted our findings to a committee assembled of cross disciplines, a committee we were part of too.
They took on board our findings and reached a decision. They actually chose the pump we rated 2nd, choice of the user is obviously different for clinical reasons.
What our report did give them was sound reasons for not choosing pumps 5 and 6 from a technical point of you.
At no stage did we know as an EBME Dept things such as feed costs, giving set costs, purchase price per pump etc.
The "users" and finance used this info along with our report to make their decision.

Being a new member to this site, and a trainer of medical devices at my local hospital, why doesn't someone suggest that they paint the manual tube release yellow and red stripes, this will stop 'user error'persons from touching this wheel every time the machine is stopped.
If not attach an emery board to it and then you can file your nails every time you plug in a new tube

Tony
I do not honestly think that changing the colour of the Tube release will alter peoples perspextive on it. I believe it is a combination of poor design and insuffient clinical training.
Admittedly I had a little problem getting to gripps with it when I first encountered this release button.
Resetting it seemed to prove more cumbersome than I had first anticipated.
Some sort of mechanical lock (e.g a barrel and key) I think would be a good start.
Something similar in principal to the Graseby Omnifuse !