Practice Change From Intermittent Medication Boluses to Bolusing From a Continuous Infusion in Pediatric Critical Care: A Quality Improvement Project.

OBJECTIVES: To determine whether implementing a guideline to bolus medications from continuous infusions in PICUs affects nursing satisfaction, patient safety, central line entries, medication utilization, or cost.

DESIGN: This is a pre- and postimplementation quality improvement study.

SETTING: An 11-bed ICU and 14-bed cardiac ICU in a university-affiliated children's hospital.

PATIENTS: Patients less than 18 years old admitted to the PICU or pediatric cardiac ICU receiving a continuous infusion of dexmedetomidine, midazolam, fentanyl, morphine, vecuronium, or cisatracurium from May 2015 to May 2016, excluding November 2015 (washout period), were eligible for inclusion.

INTERVENTIONS: Change in practice from administering bolus doses from an automated dispensing machine to administering bolus medications from continuous infusion in PICUs.

MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS: Timing studies were conducted pre- and post implementation in 29 and 26 occurrences, respectively. The median time from the decision to give a bolus until it began infusing decreased by 169 seconds (p < 0.01). Nursing satisfaction increased from 19.3% pre- to 100% post implementation. Safety was assessed via barcode scanning compliance, which decreased by 1.4% for patients and 1% for medications, and smart pump limit overrides. The percentage of infusion pump bolus overrides increased as expected, with the majority (99%) of these exceeding soft maximum limits by less than two-fold. Central line entries were unaffected post implementation. To assess medication utilization, a total of 50 patients in each intervention group were selected for retrospective chart review. Daily fentanyl boluses increased from one to three (p = 0.021). However, midazolam infusion dose and fentanyl infusion duration decreased (p = 0.026 and p = 0.005, respectively). Medication utilization was otherwise unchanged post implementation (p > 0.05). Annualized cost avoidance was $124,160.

CONCLUSIONS: Implementation of bolus medications from continuous infusion in PICUs significantly decreased time to begin a bolus dose and increased nursing satisfaction. The practice change also improved medication utilization without negatively impacting patient safety.