Development & commercialisation of 100% recyclable, compartmented, colour coded anaesthetic syringe trays to reduce medication errors in anaesthesia

The most frequently cited critical incidents in anaesthesia are drug administration errors. Unlike in the inpatient hospital ward setting, perioperative medication administration today often bypasses standard safety checks, such as electronic physician order entry with decision support, pharmacy approval of specific drugs before administration, and multiple nursing checks at the time of medication administration. Furthermore, the high-stress, time-sensitive nature of operating room care may lead to both higher rates of medication errors (MEs) and errors of high severity. Current practice prior to administration usually involves all the drugs being placed together with respective ampoules in a single non-compartmentalised tray made from either paper pulp or polypropylene therefore prone to syringe swaps, medication error and with limited or no infection control.

In collaboration with University of Derby, through this 18 months industrial research project, we (UVAMed Ltd) are developing completely compartmented, IS26825:2008 colour-coded, bacteriostatic, anaesthetic syringe trays (called Rainbow-Trays) designed with human factor principles to reduce medication error by assisting anaesthetists in the medication preparation and administration process.