Acuset IV Flow Controller

"the acuset IV flow controller has the potential to save millions of lives and improve the quality of clinical care in almost every clinical discipline throughout the developing world."

The Problem

The administration of medicines and rehydration fluids by Intravenous Infusion (IV) is the most common medical procedure employed worldwide. In first world hospitals, microprocessor controlled syringe pumps, costing $US2,000 plus, are used to ensure accurate and safe drug delivery. However, in the developing world, a 50 cent plastic roller clamp is used to control IV flow rates for the administration of highly potent medicines.

The traditional “roller clamp” is not intuitive to use and, due to its highly sensitive adjustment mechanism, even trained medical staff have difficulty in setting and maintaining accurate and safe infusion rates.

For example, when administering potent drugs such as anesthetic and HIV and chemotherapy drugs, a 3mm movement of the roller clamp may be the difference between life and death. It is almost impossible to accurately control low IV infusion rates required to safely treat children.

In addition, changes in the hydrostatic pressure as the infusion bag empties and cold flow creep inherent in the IV set tubing flow rates decrease over time means nursing staff have to constantly readjust the roller clamp to maintain the correct infusion rate.

In the developing world in many crisis situations patients are left to treat themselves often with fatal results. For example, the traditional roller clamp has no markings to permit flow rates to be accurately set or reproducibly controlled or to indicate if the clamp is in the “open or shut” position.

Movement of the patient or IV line can change the roller clamp setting resulting in under or over administration of IV infusion fluids, often with fatal results.

"This is a massive problem. Approximately 3.5 billion IV sets are used annually throughout the developing world."

The Solution

Medicine Mondiale has developed the Acuset IV Flow Controller, a reusable IV Flow Controller which is intuitive to use even by relatively untrained operators and eliminates the clinical errors associated with the use of the traditional roller clamp IV flow controller.

The patented Dial-a-Flow mechanism allows flow rates to be accurately set and maintained with a high degree of accuracy and precision improving patient safety and making every dollar spent on healthcare stretch further.

The Acuset IV Flow Controller clips to the outside of the IV set and therefore is reusable, which means the purchase price may be amortized across a range of patients.

The Medicine Mondiale Acuset IV Flow Controller has the potential to save millions of lives and improve the quality of clinical care in almost every clinical discipline throughout the developing world.