Hospitals, courtesy of the Affordable Care Act, are under the gun financially to connect their EMR (Electronic Medical Record) systems with their clinical medical equipment. This has been especially problematic and hugely expensive as their aged fleets of infusion pumps cannot be upgraded to talk to EMR servers and must be replaced. The average 300-bed hospital could easily have 300-400 of these units to replace.
All hospitals are looking for affordable ways to upgrade their current fleet of infusion pumps so that they are compatible with EMR systems…and it isn’t cheap. In fact, newer version “Smart Pumps” range anywhere from $5,000 to $10,000 each, depending on modular configuration, implementation costs, service costs and more. There needs to be at least one for every hospital bed, so you can see the math quickly adding up to over $3 million for a hospital with at least 200 beds!
Before you upgrade your fleet of infusion pumps, make sure you also understand the cost of EMR implementation costs. Not to mention, benchmark all components of your infusion pump quote (hardware, software licenses, accessories, etc.) – it is always a great way to ensure you’re hospital isn’t overpaying.