Nestle Health Science Launches Next Generation Enteral Safety Technology

20 Jan 2012

Nestle Health Science will unveil its pediatric closed system formulas with the new SpikeRight® PLUS port at the annual American Society for Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition's (A.S.P.E.N.) Clinical Nutrition Week meeting being held in Orlando January 21-24.

Enteral tubing misconnections, where feeding solutions are wrongly administered through intravenous (IV) tubing or other non-enteral systems, have been a concern for nearly thirty years. Most commonly occurring in intensive care settings, where patients have multiple types of tubing connections, an enteral tubing misconnection can result in catastrophic complications and possibly death.

To help address this issue, Nestle Health Science introduced its original SpikeRight® design in the U.S. in 2008. The company's unique design reduces the risk of proximal end (the end closest to the nutrition container) tubing misconnections. Now the next-generation design, the SpikeRight® PLUS enteral connection system, helps to further reduce the risk of tubing misconnections through its PLUS (+) shape which is specifically designed to be incompatible with IV tubing sets, IV solution bags, and other types of non-enteral connectors.

"Misconnections remain a serious risk to patients, despite the best intentions of healthcare professionals and hospitals, unless we engineer a system with safety stops," said Debora Simmons, PhD RN CCNS, Executive Operations Director at University of Texas School of Biomedical Informatics. "The SpikeRight® PLUS design is a welcomed and important safety advance in improving the quality of care for all patients."

Currently, the SpikeRight® PLUS system is available for pediatric tube feeding products. Additional Nestle Health Science products with the SpikeRight® PLUS port will be available in North America in the coming months. The issue of tubing misconnections is a global concern. Currently, the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) is working together with government and industry representatives, including Nestle Health Science, to bring a global standard for enteral nutrition connections to the marketplace. The SpikeRight® PLUS design has been proposed as the sole industry standard for the proximal end and will undergo additional usability testing this month. A final standard is expected by 2014.

"We are extremely proud to have the new SpikeRight® PLUS system available for our pediatric patients," said David Yates, North American Region Head for the company's Nestle HealthCare Nutrition business. "As a leader in safety innovation, we are committed to offering the latest technology and look forward to working with industry partners, hospitals and other healthcare facilities to help ensure the safety of their patients."

Since the initial U.S. introduction of the SpikeRight® system in 2008, Nestle Health Science has made available the design to other manufacturers royalty free and will continue to do so with the SpikeRight® PLUS design. The company has also championed patient safety through education and three hospital-based safety campaigns done in partnership with A.S.P.E.N. The initial campaign, Be A.L.E.R.T., was introduced in 2009 and featured a bedside poster to remind healthcare professionals about the necessary steps to take for safe enteral feeding. The next two campaigns expanded this safety effort to include safe enteral medication delivery (Be A.W.A.R.E., 2010) and specific patient populations such as pediatrics (Be R.E.A.D.Y., 2011), with more than 60,000 posters distributed to hospitals nationwide.

To learn more about the availability of other products in the SpikeRight® PLUS system or find more information on the BE A.L.E.R.T., BE A.W.A.R.E. and BE R.E.A.D.Y. campaigns, visit the Nestle Nutrition US website. Additionally, an interactive learning experience on the risk of tubing misconnections is available during Clinical Nutrition Week at the Nestle Health Science Enteral Safety Simulation Lab (booth 809).

Source: Nestle Health Science