BD Medical announces FDA clearance of BD Intelliport Medication Management System

BD Medical, a segment of BD (Becton, Dickinson and Company) (NYSE: BDX), a leading global medical technology company, today announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has cleared the BD™ Intelliport® Medication Management System, the first-of-its-kind medication management solution for manual IV bolus injections. The Intelliport System is the first and only solution to provide real-time drug identification, dose measurement and allergy detection at the point of injection, while wirelessly sending captured information directly into the patient's electronic medical record (EMR) following medication administration.

With this new FDA clearance, BD can offer healthcare workers advanced, smart-injection-site functionality and access to medication administration information at the point-of-care. By combining the Intelliport System's unique IV access site sensor with a rechargeable, wireless base and touch-screen tablet technology, integrated with hospital information systems, essential medical information can be recorded instantaneously, following patients throughout their perioperative stay. The Intelliport System is expected to be commercially available in spring 2015.

"As medication errors remain a primary concern with healthcare providers today, the FDA's clearance of the Intelliport System offers a significant step forward in enhancing patient safety, while also improving workflow efficiencies," said William A. Tozzi, President, BD Medical – Medical Surgical Systems. "BD has always supported healthcare providers in their efforts to exceed compliance standards and provide quality patient care and the Intelliport System is yet another example of how we bring that commitment to life."

While hospitals have been implementing barcode medication administration systems for more than two decades, no integrated solutions have been previously available for the perioperative setting that addressed the unique workflow needs of that area of care. With this FDA clearance, and for the first time in the hospital setting, real-time drug identification, dose measurement and automatic documentation will be delivered in one solution which may help manage the leading causes of medication errors in the operating room, including inadvertent substitution (syringe swap) and dosing errors.^{1, 2} The Intelliport System's automatic documentation feature may also reduce manual documentation efforts and improve accuracy by wirelessly sending medication administration information on drug, dose and time directly into a patient's EMR.

"We've been watching the development of this technology with anticipation," said Warren S. Sandberg, MD, PhD, Professor and Chair, Department of Anesthesiology, Vanderbilt University School of Medicine in Nashville, TN. "We think it has potential to both improve patient care by improving medication safety and at the same time smoothing documentation workflow."

The first live demonstration of the Intelliport System since receiving FDA clearance will be held during the Society for Technology in Anesthesia (STA) 2015 Annual Meeting taking place January 7-10 at the Royal Palms Resort in Phoenix, Arizona.