Research has shown that drug-dosing errors occur at a high rate for prehospital pediatric patients. The first and most critical step in administering drugs to a pediatric patient is to obtain or estimate a weight.
Until 2022, there were just three methods for an EMS provider to use: Broselow-Luten Tape (BLT), asking the parent, and using an age-based formula. These methods are proven to be inaccurate because they rely on ideal body weight and expect medics to avoid user errors in high-stress situations. Hinckley Medical’s OneWeight gurney scale takes the uncertainty out of obtaining a pediatric weight by outputting their actual body weight and removing any cognitive calculation with the paired OneDose mobile application.
In the study conducted by John D. Hoyle Jr on 16 different EMS agencies, the crews were required to asset four different scenarios for a pediatric call. They found that BLT was the most common method used (63.1%) and asking the parents for the weight was the least common (12.0%). The results showed that asking the parent was the most accurate way to obtain the weight and BLT fell behind mostly due to incorrect use. The BLT was used without an error in only 30.3% of all cases due to measuring the patients incorrectly. Some of these incidents include having the legs not straight, incorrectly measuring seated patients, not holding the tape at the top of the patient’s head, and having the tape to loose. These errors lead to a critical dosing error (>20%) in 12.7% of the patients in the study. Another issue in a case was the cognitive calculation in converting from pounds (lbs) to kilograms (kg), leading to a drug-dosing error.
Hinckley Medical has made it a mission to combat these primary reasons for prehospital drug-dosing errors. The OneWeight device supplies the EMS provider with the patient’s actual body weight, thus, eliminating the uncertainty in the other non-methodical and inaccurate methods. The OneDose application collects the weight and, using the EMS agencies’ protocols, calculates the precise amount of medication required for time-critical scenarios. In the conclusion of the study referenced above, it stated that more training is required for EMS providers to effectively use the BLT in the field. Hinckley Medical’s solution removes the training by automatically calculating and displaying the correct dosages.
Source:
John D. Hoyle Jr., Glenn Ekblad, Alyssa Woodwyk, Richard Brandt, Bill Fales & Richard L. Lammers (2022) Methods Used to Obtain Pediatric Patient Weights, Their Accuracy and Associated Drug Dosing Errors in 142 Simulated Prehospital Pediatric Patient Encounters, Prehospital Emergency Care, 26:4, 511-518, DOI: 10.1080/10903127.2021.1944407