Neonatal Blood Pressure Monitoring Solution Offers Increased Safety

A new line of neonatal blood pressure (BP) solutions has been specifically designed to prevent tragic misconnection errors that can cause harm to the most vulnerable of patients.

The new line of neonatal cuffs, air hoses, and upgrade kits replace the standard, tapered male-female Luer connectors currently in use. In addition to being color-coded and graphically labeled, the full line of hoses and neonatal cuffs are available in sizes one through five, ensuring a comfortable fit for the entire neonatal and infant patient population. Backward compatible connector upgrade kits are available to allow care providers to adapt older equipment with Luer connectors to the new connectors. The new line of BP neonatal solutions are products of Philips Healthcare (Best, The Netherlands), and are compliant with the neonatal connection regulations that became effective in the European Union in December 2009.


"Opportunities for misconnection errors between medical devices must be eliminated to ensure patient safety,” said David Russell, vice president and general manager of perinatal care for Philips Healthcare. "This innovative neonatal blood pressure solution is designed to be incompatible with other medical devices, such as feeding tubes, catheters, IV tubing, and needleless IV ports, thereby preventing misconnections that can cause patient harm.”

According to the World Health Organization (WHO, Geneva, Switzerland), medical errors affect one in every 10 patients around the world; to improve patient safety, the WHO has identified 9 effective solutions that healthcare providers must implement in order to reduce such errors. Avoiding catheter and tubing misconnections is number seven on that list, which also includes surgery on the wrong body part and foreign objects left in a patient after surgery.

Related Links:
Philips Healthcare
World Health Organization