H.1 Development of an Easy to Use and Readily Available Crystalloid Rapid Infuser

Rapid infusion of intravenous fluids is a critical component of hypovolemic resuscitation. Hypovolemia is one of the “H’s and T’s” which are the potential causes of cardiac arrest to be remedied if clinically indicated during a code blue situation. The most recent data shows that there are approximately 200,000 in-hospital cardiac arrests each year with around 25% survival rate [1]. During in-hospital cardiac arrests or “code blues”, if a patient is thought to be hypovolemic, rapid infusion of IV (intravenous) fluids is necessary. However, code situations are hectic, and each person involved is playing a critical role. Often the flow of fluids into a patient are stymied by the rate of infusion, availability of bags of fluid, IV access, and limited personnel. There are limited options for rapid infusion and no readily available, pre-loaded, devices to deliver IV fluids quickly.

Currently, IV fluid resuscitation is done with infusion pumps that can be set at a certain rate. In situations that faster resuscitation is needed, pressure bags can be used. Pressure bags are manually inflated bags affixed to the fluid bag that essentially squeezes the fluid bag to increase delivery. For patients that may need even quicker resuscitation, there is a handheld device that requires someone to connect it to the patient and continuously manually pump the device [2]. There are also larger devices that can rapidly infuse fluids or blood, but require special training to operate, have complicated digital interfaces, and are not available for general use [3,4]. 

The goal of this project would be to develop a user-friendly, pre-loaded, “plug and play” system that could be attached to every code cart (carts on the hospital floors that contain vital medicine and devices used during code blues) and would ease the delivery of IV fluids during critical times.

Resources:

1. Holmberg MJ, Ross CE, Fitzmaurice GM, et al. Annual Incidence of Adult and Pediatric In-Hospital Cardiac Arrest in the United States. Circ Cardiovasc Qual Outcomes. 2019;12(7):e005580. Published 2019 Jul 9.
2. https://410medical.com/publications/ 
3. https://belmontmedtech.com/rapid-infusion-pump 
4. https://www.somatechnology.com/Infusion-Pumps/Hotline-HL-1200A-Rapid-Infuser.aspx