Safer Enteral Nutrition Syringes

Abstract

Hundreds of thousands of patients receive enteral nutrition (EN) or tube feeding each year in U.S. hospitals, and many more in long-term care and home settings. In addition, these patients receive medications and or supplemental fluids, most often through that feeding tube, using syringes to deliver the medication or fluids. With each of those many medications, usually administered several times a day, a syringe is used and an enteral connection is made between the syringe and the enteral access device. With each connection is the potential for a misconnection or wrong route error.