On this page
Asset Type
Manufacturer
Model
What This Guide Helps With
Troubleshooting failed EMR infusion programming or documentation caused by patient association, barcode workflow, network connectivity, configuration, or integration-system issues.
Step-by-Step Troubleshooting
1. Ensure Patient Safety First
Do not interrupt, reprogram, or stop an active infusion solely to test EMR interoperability.
- Notify nursing, pharmacy, and the appropriate clinical team.
- Confirm that the pump is delivering the clinically ordered therapy.
- Compare the active pump parameters with the verified medication order.
- Have clinical staff manually program or document the infusion according to hospital policy when interoperability is unavailable.
- Move the patient to another verified pump only when the pump itself is unreliable or replacement is clinically appropriate.
Expected outcome: The ordered infusion continues safely without depending on auto-programming or auto-documentation.
The Novum IQ platform can support bi-directional EMR integration through Baxter’s IQ Enterprise Connectivity Suite, but interoperability functions do not replace clinical verification of the medication order and pump settings.
2. Clarify Which Function Failed
Determine whether the reported problem involves:
- An EMR order not appearing at the pump.
- Auto-programming parameters failing to transfer.
- The wrong patient or order appearing.
- A programmed infusion failing to start after transfer.
- Infusion data failing to return to the EMR.
- Delayed, incomplete, or duplicate documentation.
- Only one pump, one patient, one care area, or multiple devices being affected.
Record the exact pump message, EMR message, time of failure, patient-care area, and workflow step where communication stopped.
Expected outcome: The failure is identified as an auto-programming, auto-documentation, patient-association, or broader connectivity problem.
3. Verify the Medication Order and Workflow
Ask the responsible clinician to confirm that:
- The medication order is active and released for administration.
- The order has not been discontinued, modified, held, or replaced.
- The selected medication, concentration, route, dose, and care area are correct.
- The order is eligible for the facility’s smart-pump interoperability workflow.
- The correct medication-administration workflow was followed in the EMR.
Do not have Clinical Engineering alter medication orders or clinical parameters.
Expected outcome: A valid and eligible order is available for transfer.
If correcting the order or repeating the approved clinical workflow restores communication, verify successful transfer and stop.
4. Confirm Patient-to-Pump Association
Verify that the pump is associated with the correct patient using the facility-approved barcode or on-screen association process.
Check for:
- Incorrect patient selection.
- An expired or ended association.
- A pump still associated with a previous patient.
- A barcode that is damaged, incomplete, or difficult to scan.
- A mismatch between the patient’s current location and the location recorded in the EMR.
- Duplicate or conflicting pump associations.
The Novum IQ platform is designed to support association between the patient, medication, and pump as part of its integrated workflow.
Expected outcome: The pump displays or confirms the correct patient association.
If reassociation restores auto-programming or documentation, verify the result and stop.
5. Inspect the Pump’s Network Status
Check the pump display for its wireless-network or connectivity status.
Confirm that:
- The pump is connected to the intended hospital wireless network.
- No network-disconnected, communication, or server-unavailable message is present.
- The wireless indicator is stable rather than repeatedly connecting and disconnecting.
- The pump is within normal wireless coverage.
- The problem does not occur only in a specific room, hallway, elevator, or low-coverage area.
Move the pump, while disconnected from patient use, to a known-good coverage area and recheck connectivity.
Expected outcome: The pump establishes a stable network connection.
If connectivity returns only after relocating the pump, document the location and escalate the suspected wireless-coverage issue to the network team.
6. Compare With a Known-Good Pump
Using a pump that is not supporting a patient, compare the affected unit with a known-good Novum IQ pump in the same care area.
Determine whether:
- Both pumps connect to the network.
- Both pumps can complete patient association.
- The same order appears on the known-good pump.
- Auto-documentation works from the known-good pump.
- The failure follows the specific pump or remains with the patient, order, room, or clinical workstation.
Expected outcome: The failure is isolated to the pump or to the surrounding interoperability environment.
If multiple pumps are affected, avoid replacing pumps individually and escalate the issue as a likely system, network, EMR, or integration-service problem.
7. Verify Pump Configuration and Drug-Library Status
Check the pump’s displayed configuration information according to facility procedures.
Confirm that:
- The expected care area is selected.
- The appropriate facility profile is active.
- The pump has the approved drug-library version.
- The medication and concentration are available in the selected care area.
- The pump date and time are reasonably synchronized.
- The device has not recently returned from repair, rental inventory, or another facility with different configuration data.
Dose IQ Safety Software provides facility-specific drug-library and pump configuration support, including medication information used by Novum IQ pumps.
Expected outcome: The affected pump matches the current approved facility configuration.
Do not independently modify the drug library, medication aliases, interoperability mappings, or clinical limits. Escalate configuration discrepancies to the pharmacy, pump-system administrator, or Baxter support team.
8. Check for a Recent System or Workflow Change
Ask whether the failure began after:
- An EMR upgrade or downtime event.
- A medication-database or formulary change.
- A drug-library deployment.
- A pump software update.
- A wireless-network or certificate change.
- A server restart or integration-engine change.
- Movement of pumps between facilities or network environments.
Check approved hospital status dashboards or contact the appropriate IT group for known outages.
Expected outcome: Recent changes or active outages are identified or ruled out.
If the issue began immediately after a system change, preserve the affected pump state and escalate with the exact time and workflow details.
9. Perform a Controlled Restart When Safe
Remove the pump from patient service before restarting it.
- End or transfer any active clinical therapy according to hospital policy.
- Power the pump off normally.
- Wait briefly for shutdown to complete.
- Restart the pump.
- Allow sufficient time for the device to reconnect to the wireless network and enterprise services.
- Repeat the approved test workflow using a non-patient test method authorized by the facility.
Do not perform repeated power cycles on a pump supporting an active infusion.
Expected outcome: The pump reconnects and interoperability functions return.
If one controlled restart resolves the failure, complete a functional verification and document the event. Repeated or recurring failures require escalation.
10. Test Auto-Programming and Auto-Documentation Separately
When an approved test environment is available, determine whether each communication direction functions independently.
Test whether:
- The EMR can send an infusion order to the pump.
- The pump can return infusion status or documentation to the EMR.
- Patient association remains intact during both tests.
- The failure occurs with all medications or only one medication, concentration, or order type.
Expected outcome: The failed communication direction and affected workflow are clearly identified.
Auto-programming and auto-documentation use bi-directional integration; one function may fail even when the opposite communication direction remains available.
11. Collect Integration Details for Escalation
Before escalating, record:
- Pump asset number and serial number.
- Pump software version.
- Drug-library version and care area.
- Date, time, and physical location.
- Wireless connection status.
- Exact pump and EMR messages.
- Patient-association status.
- Whether auto-programming, auto-documentation, or both failed.
- Whether a known-good pump worked.
- Whether other pumps or departments are affected.
- The medication, concentration, and order type, excluding unnecessary protected health information from the work order.
Expected outcome: IT, pharmacy informatics, the EMR team, or Baxter support receives enough information to trace the failed transaction.
If the Problem Persists
When patient association, order status, pump configuration, wireless connectivity, and basic workflow checks have been completed, the remaining cause may involve:
- The pump’s wireless or communication hardware.
- IQ Enterprise Connectivity Suite services.
- EMR interface or integration-engine processing.
- Medication or concentration mapping.
- Network certificates, authentication, or routing.
- Server-side configuration.
- Pump software or configuration corruption.
Remove the pump from service when the failure follows the individual device, communication is unstable, required configuration is incorrect, or the pump produces repeated technical errors.
- Label the pump Out of Service.
- Send it for bench evaluation or authorized repair.
- Escalate system-wide failures to IT, pharmacy informatics, the EMR integration team, and Baxter support.
- Do not attempt internal wireless-module, circuit-board, or software repair without authorized service documentation.
Knowing when the problem has moved beyond external troubleshooting is proper Clinical Engineering practice.
Clinical Use Tip
Auto-programming and auto-documentation are workflow aids, not substitutes for clinical verification. Clinicians must confirm the patient, medication, concentration, dose, rate, route, and pump settings before starting therapy.
Never troubleshoot interoperability by interrupting a critical infusion. Establish a safe manual workflow or transfer the therapy first.
Work Order Documentation (CCR Method)
CCR = Complaint, Cause, Resolution
Complaint
What was reported by the clinical staff.
Example:
"Nursing reported that a Baxter Novum IQ pump would not receive the selected infusion order from the EMR and did not automatically document the infusion."
Cause
What was observed during troubleshooting.
Example:
"The pump was connected to Wi-Fi but remained associated with the previous patient, preventing the current order from transferring."
Resolution
What action was taken.
Example:
"Removed the previous association, completed the approved patient-association workflow, verified successful auto-programming and auto-documentation, and returned the pump to service."
Helpful Details to Include (If Known)
- Patient safety addressed before testing
- Active order verified
- Correct patient association confirmed
- Barcode condition checked
- Pump wireless status recorded
- Known-good coverage area tested
- Known-good pump compared
- Care area verified
- Drug-library version recorded
- Pump software version recorded
- Auto-programming result recorded
- Auto-documentation result recorded
- Exact error messages documented
- Other affected pumps or departments identified
- IT, pharmacy informatics, or Baxter case number recorded
- Final device status documented
Final Thought
Safe troubleshooting begins by protecting the infusion and confirming that clinicians have a reliable manual workflow. Patient association, valid orders, wireless connectivity, configuration, and system scope should be checked before suspecting pump hardware. Clear CCR documentation helps Clinical Engineering, IT, pharmacy, and the manufacturer resolve interoperability failures efficiently.
That is successful troubleshooting.